by Katherine Heires
From the Harvard Business School's online resource, Working Knowledge for Business Leaders
abstracts prepared by Hugh Fisher

With each passing day, more and more people are developing weblogs ("blogs" for short): interactive online journals which are easily updated, linked to, and indexed by search engines. While many think of blogs as a tool for journalists, hobbyists, or those with distant friends and family, more and more blogs are being used by businesses as a means of presenting up-to-the-minute information and testing the waters of public opinion.

Katherine Heires of Mediakat LLC offers some tips for owners who want to harness the blog trend for their companies' greater good. She cites the example of General Motors executive Bob Lutz, whose company-run blog has become a chief means of seeing what customers are saying about product quality and satisfaction. She also discusses the blog as a way for companies to give out information on new developments or to sway opinion by giving facts about their products. However, she cautions that such uses must be carefully planned and genuine; the blogging community is rapidly growing but thrives on genuine conversation.

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=5111&t=marketing

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