This entry was spurred by Adriana Cronin-Lukas’ entry on her company’s website, Big Blog Company. A quote, if you will:
“Calacanis blogs (and Denton’s for that matter) have a mission, sell as much advertising as they can by generating hits for their blogs. Can’t blame them for trying, but it shows the fundamental misunderstanding of blog audiences, individuals that feel they are getting something valuable and a distinctive alternative to professional or industry media and publications.”
This quote was pulled from Adriana’s entry regarding the launch of Autoblog, a WIN (Weblogs, Inc.) weblog launched recently by Jason Calacanis. For some reason, Adriana is pidgeonholing all weblogs into one generalized category and/or purpose — to communicate directly with your customers. Yup, that is a great way to use a weblog, but definitely not the only way.
Weblogs are a new way to communicate online, period. This communication can be of a conversational nature with people who share your interests, it can be a new way of enhancing Customer Relationship Management, it can be an internal means by which to disperse information to your employees, or it can be a LiveJournal that discusses how your college final exams turned out. There is no right or wrong way to use the weblog medium, it is what it is, and it does what you set it up to do.
Weblogs, Inc. is striving to “create a new layer on top of business to business media”, where information is dispersed and updated more frequently, and reaches a larger audience. They specialize in releasing topical weblogs that provide valuable information about specific industries, which can be used alongside traditional media to enhance knowledge and awareness in that industry. This is one way to use the weblog medium, why would someone think it is “wrong”?
Our Thoughts
Here at BusinessLogs, we don’t feel there is an incorrect way to use a weblog — you tailor the usage of it to fit your business communication model. Using it to announce a product launch or communicating directly with your customers are just two of the many ways this new medium can be utilized. There is no governing weblog body that says you cannot use weblogs for X, but can use them for Y. There is simply a goal that you or your business has, and a way to use weblogs to achieve that goal.
Also: Jason took the time to comment on Adriana’s post to alleviate some of her concerns. I think this really says a lot about Weblogs, Inc. and Jason personally, considering later in the post, Adriana calls Autoblog’s advertising strategy “pathetic”.
