Comments on: trogging

By: Robin Good's Latest News

Robin Good's Latest News — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 18:56:46 +0000

Marketing Buzz Is A Conversation And Blogs Are Its Voices: The Global Conversation Is On

The Blogosphere allows people to search for answers, to challenge and to build on established theories. It gives a person a voice in the global conversation, which is unrestrained by national borders, although some governments do tightly control the us…

By: A Frog in the Valley

A Frog in the Valley — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 22:40:53 +0000

Output du weekend sur del.ico.us Je me demandais la semaine dernière si certaine personnes qui lisaient mon carnet n'étaient pas abonnés au fil web de mes signets partagés sur del.ico.us... Je me disait que je devrais à l'occasion poster ici aussi......

By: greeting card

greeting card — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 08:31:09 +0000

..there's a certain irony d12 there, isn't there? Or imagine news media if the St Matthew Passion metallica was Richard Dawkins's favourite psychic piece of music (plausible jc penney enough--scientists go for sears Bach)

By: Just Matt

Just Matt — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 05:46:09 +0000

I think fake blogs do get read; here's a couple of examples: http://www.businessblogconsulting.com/2004/03/beta7.html http://www.adrants.com/2004/07/xbox-launch-plan-used-fake-blog-gets.php Both blogs are promoting games for the Xbox. So it would appear that blogging as an advertising tool is well established. I don't the leap from these phony 'beta tester' blogs to phony 'employee' blogs is as far as some would claim. Furthermore, I don't think they'll be as easily discovered.

By: Justin Kownacki

Justin Kownacki — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 05:34:12 +0000

Doesn’t hurt to play devil’s advocate, though. Especially if it clears up the Reason People Read Blogs in the First Place.

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:40:50 +0000

Yeah. Phoney blogs don’t get read.

By: wbwither

wbwither — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 07:24:05 +0000

(Reached your blog via the link on Scobleizer: http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/09/18.html#a8235 ) In reply to Justin Kownacki: It's simple for a reader to know the genuine article. A lot of these folks at the advertising agencies wouldn't know candor if it hit them over the head. Plus, "discrediting" an existing blog is just about impossible, I think. The way that blogs get established in the first place is basically through 1) word-of-mouth and 2) saying good things. It takes a lot of time to build up an audience, particularly one that keeps coming back. You can't just advertise your blog with Google AdWords or something; you've got to convince real people that what you're writing is both genuine and worth reading. It takes a lot of time to maintain a blog; paying some advertising agency employee to blog all day just doesn't make sense. Any ad person would quickly run out of things to say about the company (s)he's promoting; and if that's NOT the case (i.e. (s)he actually knows a lot about the day-to-day goings-on at the client company), then maybe the blog wouldn't be so fake anyway. Furthermore, I think the idea would scare the daylights out of most corporate advertising firms. These people make their money by coming up with ideas, and then focus-grouping and market-testing them to gauge public response before they actually "go live." Furthermore, every word of ad copy usually has to be approved by somebody at the client company. The process can take months. Blogs are an immediate medium; it's literally from brain to world in a few minutes. VERY few companies would trust an ad agency to be able to do that, and I'd imagine that most ad agencies would be paralyzed by the thought of trying to do it. So, I think that we might see a bit of experimentation in this area, but I think your cynicism is largely unwarranted.

By: Justin Kownacki

Justin Kownacki — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 01:58:10 +0000

Here’s my concern: the dreaded flip side, in which paid “blogs” (aka Corporate Ads) are written up and maintained by advertising agencies in order to flood the web with falsified information about certain companies. The goal won’t be to fool the public into believing the falsified blogs; once the backlash from these fake blogs (flogs?) subsides, they’ll have succeeded by discrediting the actual existing, decent blogs, nullifying the potential good such blogs could do.
If you can’t join ‘em, sabotage ‘em…
I’m cynical without my coffee…

By: Alex Feldstein

Alex Feldstein — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 11:29:58 +0000

I agree. I met Scoble several times. He is all that and more. One of the good guys.
Besides what you say about the good image he creates for his employer, you have to consider that his employer allows him to do that. It is the rare big corporation that allows their employees to talk in public at all. Kudos to MS on that one!
Note: I do not work for MS.

By: Evelyn Rodriguez

Evelyn Rodriguez — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 09:56:16 +0000

Totally agree. I've felt the same way and written about how Scoble plus a whole slew of other MS bloggers have totally changed my view of Microsoft (just Google: Microsoft Clinton). MS branding is kind of cold, distant, de-humanized to end-users; and their reputation is much worse if you are in the industry and have to compete (and/or partner) with them. I think internally I get the sense that Microsoft has a fairly open "agreement isn't necessary, thinking for yourself is" campus-like environment where everyone doesn't have to be a yes-(wo)man. This is critical for corporate blogging to truly flourish (Friendster anyone?) In my view, if there is no trust and transparency it's not a blog no matter what you may call it. "Blog" to me has always equated to trust and transparency.