Former Microsoft blogger and Naked Conversations author Robert Scoble has announced that he’s leaving podcasting startup PodTech to take a newly created position at Fast Company:

First of all, thanks to John Furrier, James McCormick, and the entire PodTech team. I grew a lot over the past year due to the opportunities they gave me and that turned into hundreds of interviews on ScobleShow.com.

Wednesday (today) Rocky Barbanica and I are moving to work for Mansuetto Ventures. They are the producers of Fast Company and Inc. magazines. What will we be doing? Helping to build a new, interactive, online video community called FastCompany.TV which will open on March 3.

Mansueto Digital President Edward Sussman today announced the launch of FastCompany.TV, a new online video network. Scoble will serve as Managing Director of the site, which is slated to launch in March.

Scoble’s daily video series, ScobleTV, will be featured on FastCompany.TV. Scoble’s current video show receives about one million views a month. Scoble will also bring his popular blog, Scobleizer.com, to the Mansueto Digital network of sites, which includes FastCompany.com, Inc.com, IncBizNet.com and IncTechnology.com.

“I decided to join up with Fast Company because I wanted to work with a brand well known for covering innovation and technology in an authoritative, provocative manner,” said Scoble. “And I’m excited that the Mansueto Digital websites are innovating in the social media space themselves.”

Scoble offers seven reasons for his decision to move to Fast Company:

1. Fast Company (the magazine) has seen a resurgence in the past year. The content has gotten better. Ad sales were way up. They have new offices in New York City (I won’t be moving, rather staying in Silicon Valley).
2. The editorial team at Fast Company and Inc. Magazines is getting cover articles that few others are able to get and the whole team will drive a lot of great content that’ll show up on my show and on the network.
3. They have invested in a major new social networking site that’ll be revealed soon. Fast Company was one of the first magazines with a social network, called “The Company of Friends” and the new site, built in open-source Drupal, excited me because of the distribution and community it brings.
4. They are working on a new magazine aimed at startups, too, which obviously I’m interested in.
5. They have a sales team that’s already successful in selling to clients outside the tech industry (getting diversity is important to protect independence and also to bring fresh approaches to events and advertising).
6. They liked my participatory style of video better than other companies and want to expand it. Excited about technologies like Qik, Kyte, Seesmic, Mogulus, DotSub, etc. Other people/companies I talked with had blank stares when I talked about these technologies and how they might change the media business.
7. They have a tech team who understands how to integrate various Web technologies together. My column’s page on Fast Company , for instance, has a calendar from Upcoming.org and a feed from Google Reader integrated into it along with video interviews and other things. We’ll expand that kind of integration on the new network.

Robert Scoble Naked image: JDLasica