Fortune Magazine's January 10 issue discusses the 10 Tech Trends to Watch in 2005. Number one on this list is "There's No Escaping the Blog."
David Kirkpatrick and Daniel Roth analyze the good and bad with
blogging and conclude that the blogging force is a powerful tool that
will play a big part in 2005. Yet another year-end story that discusses
the impact of this tool.
In their analysis they point out that blogs can be a corporation's
worst PR nightmare. What they fail to point out is the potential it
holds as a PR tool. Blogs will grow in 2005 to be a tremendous media
relations tool for corporations who effectively use them.
While discussing his
favorite topics of 2004 on ClickZ, Jupiter Research analyst Gary Stein offers a few words of wisdom that could go a long way in 2005:
The ability to tap into
consumer conversations is fantastic and powerful. Companies are falling
all over themselves trying to figure out how to use the blog phenomenon
to their advantage. All too often, they conclude they should use blogs
to talk. Please. Brands do enough talking as it is. Use the blog space
to
listen.
Rather than just italicize "listen," I think he should have italicized the whole sentence.
USE THE BLOG SPACE TO LISTEN!
This is sound advice. The power of blogging resides not in what
we have to say, but in how people respond to what we have to say.
Bacon's announced last week
their new blog monitoring initiative. According to the press
release and follow-up discussions, beginning in January 2005, Bacon's MediaSource research
module will identify 250 of the most reputable blogs, the messages they
contain and the frequency with which client-relevant information shows
up on the blogs.
Jeremy Pepper posted some additional feedback
today on his Musings from POP! blog from the Marketing/PR Director at
Bacon's. The net-net being that Bacon's is approaching this with
quality in mind versus quantity.
What interests me is the story that MediaPost hints at
behind Ruth McFarland's vacillation to pull three of her editors off
their normal beats to have them solely focus on monitoring the
blogosphere. McFarland is the senior vice presdident and
publisher for Bacon's.
I tend to agree that no one is accurately monitoring blogging's
influentials and we still lack a solid blogger taxonomy, but it's only
a matter of time. However, I believe the process and
identification will require adjustment and evolution over time.
New voices will be discovered and added every day--just look at the
numbers. Quantity will continue to increase, bringing with it
more clutter, but also the promise of new and respectable talent.