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Tuesday, December 06, 2005

I'm not ready for a relationship

Blogger relations is a funny old game. Nokia seems to have nailed it with the N90 blog, by throwing marketing genius and money at the issue and creating a blogger relations site that not only seems to stay on top of its lofty goals but works pretty well as a blog in its own right. My mate Andy also does a pretty good job - a few infractions aside - of posting at the speed of light, keeping on top of comments, populating other blogs and generally sounding authoritative.

Come to think of it, most - if not all - of the corporate blogs (clogs) I read are really just blogger relations exercises. Microsoft seems to do a good job of feeding the blogging community with PR to keep the blogosphere humming. It's just that Nokia's done it with more transparency. Soon, Andy could be the new king clogger. He is Scobleizer 2.0.

To turn things on their head a little - I'm in the mood as I'm posting from the top deck of a rowdy London bus - it could easily be argued that clogs don't exist. They're just blogger relations sites formatted like blogs (because that's the format in which bloggers prefer to receive information) and ruled over by a character with enough time and inclination to post, comment and sound intelligent.

And seeing as most blogs have a corporate message behind them somewhere - apart from a) little blogs written by old folk in Utah about their cat b) proper magazine-style blogs like Gizmodo and Boing Boing which get treated like editorially-driven magazines anyway), then the target for blogger relations exercises don't exist either.

So - to recap: Clogs don't exist. Blogs don't exist. The corporations are pumping money into blogger relations strategies that are only serving to inform a closed network of other corporations what they're up to. The information survives forever in a closed loop.

Nobody takes any notice, until one day a bored journalist at a real publication can't be bothered to find their own story and takes a dip into their RSS reader to see what's a-hummin' in the blogosphere.

But wouldn't said journalist have been sent his or her own N90 anyway..?

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1 Comments:

Blogger Andy said...

Oh dear..I think we are actually almost getting along..Gee, I'll have to do something "naughty" can't have you with no one to pick on :-)

Seriously, I met Scoble once at BloggerCon. He had two laptops, both running Windows XP side by side so he could blog, work. I was trying to just put up with Dave Winer's non stop ranting about...oh, nothing that matters in the grand scheme of life.

Anyway, to be compared to Scoble..hmm, I use a Mac. One. Uno I'm not sure thus the moniker is that fitting and I won't say thanks, but..if the shoe fits...I guess I'll wear it, proudly.

12:06 am  

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