InfoWorld podcaster and writer Jon Udell announced via his podcast (MP3) today that he is moving to a new job at Microsoft, where he will be a Microsoft Evangelist.

Udell’s move highlights the increasing importance of corporate podcasting and the growing demand for people that are as comfortable with new media as they are with technology. Blogger Robert Scoble recently switched from being a Microsoft geek blogger to hosting a technology show for PodTech, ScobleShow. Udell plans to become a sort of uber-Scoble at Microsoft.

“Robert played a key role in a grand experiment to make Microsoft’s development processes more transparent,” said Udell. “I’ve proposed a different experiment. I’ll continue to be a channel for alpha geeks. But I also want to become a channel for a whole lot of civilians in the mainstream. And above all, I want to build bridges between these two groups.”

“Over the years I’ve evangelized a bunch of things to the alpha-geek crowd: Internet groupware, blogging, syndication, tagging, web architecture, lightweight integration, microformats, structured search, screencasting, dynamic languages, geographic mapping, random-access audio, and more,” adds Udell. “I’ve chosen to align myself with Microsoft because I think it has the scale, the resources, and the business incentive to help me empower a lot of people to learn how to do that.”

“I’ve proposed to Microsoft that I continue to function pretty much as I do now. That means blogging, podcasting, and screencasting on topics that I think are interesting and important; it means doing the kinds of lightweight and agile R&D that I’ve always done; and it means brokering connections among people, software, information, and ideas — again, as I’ve always done.”