Robert Scoble
From EOW Wiki
Dave Winer met Robert Scoble when Robert was a conference organizer for Fawcett.
Robert sent a packet to upcoming presenters at a conference with dozen or so publication clippings. And Dave reports thinking "This guy is a blogger".
Eventually Robert joined UserLand Software and worked with Dave until Robert subsequently left UserLand to be a Microsoft Staff Blogger.
Dave and Robert have weathered many internet blog storms and remained good friends with very few disturbances in their relationship.
One notable area of conflict was Dave's position on the internet "mob reaction" to the Kathy Sierra "Death Threat" scandal. Dave rejected the idea that several prominent bloggers should be vilified for a blog that was loosely linked to some ugly emails Kathy received. One of these notable bloggers penned a few rather nasty posts about Maryam Scoble (Robert's wife) and Maryam asked Robert to get Dave to change his mind. She wanted Dave to pick between his affection for the Scobles and his belief in a blogger's right to blog controversial ideas without censure from a "mob mentality".
Other than that event there have been nothing but almost weekly reports of Dave and Robert communicating supportive messages to each other in all varieties of "internet weather". Often, it seems, Dave will ask Robert for his support on a current issue and Robert will blog affirmatively with a "What Dave Said" endorsement. Examples abound: Google Delivering a Plug-in to Embedding Links based upon certain text occurrences come to mind: Book ID's that point to Amazon.com and Addresses pointing to google.maps, etc.
Robert is the likely candidate to win "BFF" in the Dave Winer book of buddies.
It takes special qualities to be trusted by Dave Winer and Robert Scoble has these qualities in abundance: with a sense of humor, a love of ideas and an enjoyment of life and society. Robert is everyone's friend in a sense but a most special friend to Dave: someone who stands with him in all situations and supports him when he needs it most. For every Yin there is a Yang: opposites but complimentary models of behavior in many ways. (One I'd like to meet and one I'd like to avoid). YMMV. The life and the death of many parties.
