Monday, October 31, 2005
Online Publishers Association: Newsletters:
"Blogs beguile Corporate America -- but beware of splogs!
Blogs scare the jeepers out of big companies, but also offer a way for companies to reach out to customers in unprecedented ways. Thus, the dilemma. So fast food giant McDonald's decided to launch some corporate blogs, but only on its intranet until the fast food giant could study their effects, ClickZ reported. The New York Times reported on consumers who set up blogs to cover their favorite products and services, such as Barq's root beer, Gatorade and Netflix. While the companies don't endorse or support the blogs, the blogs provide valuable feedback as an informal network of consumer opinion. Plus, Intelliseek's BlogPulse made a deal with AOL to provide it with hot topics in the blogosphere so AOL could keep its readers up on the latest trends.
But while blog readership is soaring, it's also eating into work time, according to an analysis by Ad Age. The magazine estimates that U.S. workers will spend the equivalent of 551,000 years in 2005 reading non-work-related blogs while at work. "Traffic rockets at 8 a.m. EST, peaks at 5 p.m. EST and then slides downward until L.A. leaves the office," Blogads founder Henry Copeland told AdAge. "At work, people can't watch TV or prop up their feet and read a newspaper, but they sure do read blogs." The other downside for blogs is the recent surge in "splogs," or spam blogs, created by scraping content from other blogs or news sources and selling ads against it. Wired News recently explained how to detect and report splogs so they don't gain traction in major search engine results.
» McDonald's Dips Toe In Blogging Waters (ClickZ)
» Brand Blogs Capture the Attention of Some Companies (NY Times)
» AOL to take Blogs' Pulse via Intelliseek (ClickZ)
» What Blogs Cost American Business (AdAge)
» MHow to Fight Those Surging Splogs (Wired News)"
"Blogs beguile Corporate America -- but beware of splogs!
Blogs scare the jeepers out of big companies, but also offer a way for companies to reach out to customers in unprecedented ways. Thus, the dilemma. So fast food giant McDonald's decided to launch some corporate blogs, but only on its intranet until the fast food giant could study their effects, ClickZ reported. The New York Times reported on consumers who set up blogs to cover their favorite products and services, such as Barq's root beer, Gatorade and Netflix. While the companies don't endorse or support the blogs, the blogs provide valuable feedback as an informal network of consumer opinion. Plus, Intelliseek's BlogPulse made a deal with AOL to provide it with hot topics in the blogosphere so AOL could keep its readers up on the latest trends.
But while blog readership is soaring, it's also eating into work time, according to an analysis by Ad Age. The magazine estimates that U.S. workers will spend the equivalent of 551,000 years in 2005 reading non-work-related blogs while at work. "Traffic rockets at 8 a.m. EST, peaks at 5 p.m. EST and then slides downward until L.A. leaves the office," Blogads founder Henry Copeland told AdAge. "At work, people can't watch TV or prop up their feet and read a newspaper, but they sure do read blogs." The other downside for blogs is the recent surge in "splogs," or spam blogs, created by scraping content from other blogs or news sources and selling ads against it. Wired News recently explained how to detect and report splogs so they don't gain traction in major search engine results.
» McDonald's Dips Toe In Blogging Waters (ClickZ)
» Brand Blogs Capture the Attention of Some Companies (NY Times)
» AOL to take Blogs' Pulse via Intelliseek (ClickZ)
» What Blogs Cost American Business (AdAge)
» MHow to Fight Those Surging Splogs (Wired News)"
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