Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me that John Robb’s missing weblog is not really about control. It’s really about the blurring of the lines between our Corporate and our Personal Identities. We don’t expect to keep our email addresses when we leave a company, why would we expect to keep a corporate supplied weblog?

If UserLand were to be acquired by another company, then it’s conceivable that we might someday see Scripting News sundered from Dave Winer. I’m sure that Dave would try to negotiate ownership of Scripting News as part of any acquistion. But I have to think that Scripting News also represents a significant corporate asset and it might not be on the table.

So the moral is to keep cognizant of corporate identity and assets vs personal identity and assets. Because they’re not hard to keep separate if you start out that way. But once they mingle, corporate will win almost every time.