Blogs and business

The London, Ontario, Free Press describes how blogs have moved beyond the personal and political expressions of the technologically savvy and into the corporate world.

Free-lancer David Canton writes that corporations are using blogs to brand or position their products, develop relationships with target customer groups and complement their internal communications.

Microsoft and Sun Microsystems go so far as to allow employees to blog publicly, on either corporate or private topics. This individual blogging allows the companies to broadcast a corporate personality, Canton writes.

However, Canton also warns that employee bloggers may reveal information which is confidential or which the company considers inappropriate. He cites the example of a Microsoft employee fired for posting on his blog a picture of pallets of new Apple Power Mac G5 computers sitting on a Microsoft loading dock. And see the Nov. 29 post about Delta Air Lines’ dismissal of a flight attendant who posted on her blog mildly revealing photos of herself in her Delta uniform inside an airliner cabin.