neowin.net

Mark Jen, a blogger whose candid comments about life on the job at Google sparked controversy last month, has left the company.

"Mark is no longer an employee at Google," a Google representative said in response to an inquiry Tuesday. Efforts to reach Jen for comment were not immediately successful.

Jen's departure comes less than a month after he joined Google as part of a wave of new hires and began recording his impressions of his new employer, including criticisms, in his blog.

Employee blogging is on the rise, sparking increasing clashes between workers and management over the line between appropriate and inappropriate commentary. In one recent dispute, a Delta Air Lines flight attendant lost her job after posting photos of herself in uniform on her blog.

A Microsoft contractor lost his job last year after he took some pictures of Apple G5 computers being unloaded onto the software company's campus and posted them to his blog.

Friendster, known for breaking new ground in online social networking and promoting self-expression among peers, fired one of its employees in August over her Troutgirl blog.

The employee blog issue is doubly sensitive for Google, which became a prominent booster of blogging through its acquisition of Web logging pioneer Pyra Labs in February 2003. The company also has made a point of putting ethics before profits in its business operations, suggesting it holds itself to a higher standard of care than the average for customers and employees.

While details of Jen's departure are unclear, the newbie Googler ran into trouble at the company almost immediately when he decided to record his impressions of Google on a blog called Ninetyninezeros--one zero short of the mathematical term known as a "googol."

Jen began making entries in Ninetyninezeros on Jan. 17, and soon drew the notice of other bloggers. Curiosity spiked when the postings temporarily disappeared about a week later

On Jan. 26, an edited version of the blog reappeared on the site, with a new entry explaining the on-again, off-again commentary. Gone was the first day's post explaining his reasons for creating the blog, as well as a description of an employee orientation event that vaguely touched on discussions of Google's booming business.

At that time, Jen denied he made the change under duress, insisting that Google "was pretty cool about all this."

News of Jen's job status was posted at Google Blogoscoped. According to an anonymous message in the blog forum, Jen was let go on Jan. 28.

http://news.com.com/Google+blogger+has+lef..._3-5567863.html

Point of note. Mark Jen left Microsoft to join google

This what kills me today about business, I encourage my staff to do blogs and not be afraid to express what they want ,even if me or my company is doing something they feel is bad or wrong or not in the best intrests of future customers. This view by companys great and small of control and be good little boys and girls and follow in line like good little sheep is unproductive, doesnt allow for open discussion of company rules and policys and stinks of orwellian views unacceptable. anywhere in my company .

or he was asked to leave

Nobody saw the reasoning in that one, but then wasn't it was revealed not to long ago, that those G5's became the XBOX2 Dev Kits. (according to Game Informer, Oct 2004)
Which would then change that whole issue to revealing trade secrets, and makes it sound much more justafiable.

hm the G5s are also for VPC testing... duh? wahst the big deal. apple has dells on their campus for itunes work... and other stuff. * longhorn *

this is just unprofesionnal what he did, period

man, that sucks for this guy...I wonder what he will do now. He had just moved down there, too. What a bummer.

his presentation of them may be the problem. why would google get rid of him if he didn't make them look bad?

he obviously knew too much

.. and MS Office for Mac! Microsoft still does develop for Macs and needs a way to test their products.

You, sir, sound like a guy I would kill to work for.

I'm very pro freedom of speech, but I'm not sure how I feel about employees losing their jobs over blogging. If the blog is hurting the company (by lowering profits or lowering employee moral) then I can totally understand the problem there. I still have mixed feelings.

i dunno

thanks bang position open for you anytime you want one I respect you and what you do! i have your webpage on my favs and check it daily.


now on to the comment by finalcut, there is no way you can argue it is unprofessional, everyone seems to forget that person who is writing the blog first off helps make the company what it is therefore if they are writing about bad policys or what they etc this effects stock prices bottom line etc, These stock holder are public people who may indeed have thier life savings in the company need to know whats going on . these are share holders and also customers, the bottom line is customer first profits last...period. the problem with this dont talk dont speak when it comes to business today is you get companies like enron and mci world com dozens of others no one speaks out no one knows whats going on and the result is well as you saw with those 2 examples. the working man trying to invest some money for thier kids college and earn a living get screwed. meantime the c.e.o.'s and board who have this polcy of oh no dont say or do anything that may be quote bad pr get fat and rich and everyone else who followed the orwellian rule are in the employment line as mark is in this forum. when I or my company is not keeping MY people happy or my customers I wanna know about, i have an open door policy from the board, down to the guy in the litttle cubby hole in the corner. even I the owner is not above reproach or responsability. thats the bottom line... ok sorry im off my soap box now.