Day: November 4, 2005

For the most part blogging is a solitary online activity (no sniggering down the back), but it’s (for me in any case) made worthwhile through feedback, both positive and negative, from the poor souls who wander innocently onto the HTML pages you see before you.

Recently the comments have been overwhelmingly positive, phrases such as “awesome”, “humourous”, “witty”, “intelligent”, “insightful” etc etc. There’s too many to cover here and I’m simply too modest to share some of them. The funny thing is, all these fan comments and e-mails come from a community I hadn’t originally envisaged as a core audience for a blog on Public Relations and marketing… namely the pr0n industry, spammers and other peddlers of useful rubbish on the Internet. Unfortunately as my IQ does (sometimes) reach double digits, I’ve had to delete these wonderful comments before I could share them with you dear reader. But I just thought you should know there’s millions of spammers out there who love this blog….

On another topic, I’m a big fan of dog food. Not in the culinary sense obviously, though my dog seems to enjoy it, I mean in the sense of using the products and services of your employer, and so you’ll notice there’s a new primary e-mail address for all correspondence and it’s also my MSN IM ID. tpemurphy AT hotmail DOT com. I’ll continue to check the other account for a while but then I’ll get lazy…. and will probably miss all those opportunities to win millions of dollars online…

Well as expected the usual hysterical blog backlash greeted the recent Forbes piece on the risks of blogging.

While I was reading much of the commentary a couple of thoughts came to mind, and as usual I thought I’d bore you to tears with my own little opinion.

First and foremost everyone needs to chill-out a little.

• Was the article a little sensationalist? Yes

• Was much of the advice it provided on managing a blog-related issue ill advised? Yes

• Was it an interesting read? Yes

• And did it raise a potential major issue? Yes

Do we think it is a good thing that we only highlight the positive aspects of blogging? Surely there is a carrot and a stick approach to blogging. Organizations should be keenly aware that while blogs help build conversations, promote understanding and help with promotion and SEO, there is a much darker side to the democratization of opinion. There are dangers and risks.

In addition, I believe it’s good, right and true that consumers should become more educated on blogging and that they question the source, agenda and bias of blog authors.

People’s reputations are being legitimately and illegitimately attacked through blogs each and every day. To ignore that aspect of blogging – and I personally haven’t seen a lot of people writing about it – is unwise.

It appears that for many of the blogging community the only acceptable editiorial on the subject is the same sugary puff pieces, that in another sphere, they would mercilessly attack as proof that “the traditional media is dead”.

The sky isn’t falling down here. The fact that Forbes covered the subject means that blogging is maturing, this is a standard phase for any new tool, technology or channel. Debate of these issues is healthy and to be welcomed.

I would point out that it is good professional practice to provide clients with a holistic view of blogging. It’s clear that the Forbes piece was scare mongering but it’s no harm adding a bit of balance to the blogging utopia available on millions of sites around the Internet.

P.S. I’m sure you’ve already read it, but Richard Edelman has an interesting take on the Forbes article. I don’t necessarily agree with his recomendation that we should (only) put forward the positive view of blogging, but it’s well written.