Blogs as disintermediation
I got to thinking about this when I took a look at all the MS dotNet blogs - all of them with RSS feeds. MSDN now has RSS feeds as well - think about that for a minute. The dotNet blogs all allow comments, and it looks like the authors read (and more importantly, respond to) the comments. What does that mean? Well, a bunch of those bloggers are product managers or project leads. How hard was it in the past to get ahold of the product manager for something at an outfit as big as MS? Now look at it - straightforward access, including contact information. That's huge. It used to be that you had to go to a trade show (and swim through huge crowds) or be an important customer and get ad hoc access. Now anyone with a browser or news aggregator can get far more details.
There's another fallout of this as well. MS is a big company, and - to put it delicately - has something of a controversial public image. These blogs help soften that image by putting real - and unedited - human voices on the firm. Instead of a carefully crafted press release from Redmond, you can read the actual thinking of employees at MS - including those of blogger in chief Scoble - who's posting MS marketing stuff to a non-MS server. For all the crap I give Scoble about the rah rah postings, it's real - and it seems that MS hired him, in part, to do exactly what he's doing.
Over time, this is going to result in a more positive view of MS through the tech community - because they'll be exposed to real people who work for MS instead of just the reporting of the trade press. This is happening somewhat in the political realm as well (see the Dean campaign for an example). I think it's a little less real there - the various campaign blogs are all marketing efforts, not real stuff like the MS blogs, or this blog. Still, they are opening a window into those campaigns that is valuable - the campaigns aren't relying only on major media to get their message and tone out - which is relevant to the point I'm trying to make here
Now contrast this with bigger companies that don't have anyone blogging for them. The only image you get is the marketing department's image. Maybe that's ok - but I think most people take that image with a decent amount of cynicism. This isn't to say that there aren't dangers here - marketing departments exist to create and massage the image of a company, and letting just anyone create an unfiltered view could go badly. It's early days on this stuff, and I'm sure we'll see some major mistakes made as time goes by. In the meantime, I think it's a bandwagon that most firms in the tech world are going to have to get on
Comments
Re: Blogs as disintermediation
[Rich Demers] November 9, 2003 13:43:39.085
Comment on Blogs as disintermediation by Rich Demers
I think it would be a mistake to assume those MS blogs are unfiltered and unfettered. I have to believe there are MS powers who set guidelines for what can and cannot be said, and who watch that those guidelines are followed. If they're smart, this still leaves a lot of room for free discussions, with the benefits to both MS and customers that Jim claims -- and that is good marketing and good PR. But what hapens if a MS blogger strays from those guidelines? Probably not much more than warnings for first offenses. After all, blog entries are pretty ephemeral, and can be easily erased from archives. Still, it could get nasty -- continued employment and all that.
Re: Blogs as disintermediation
[James Robertson] November 9, 2003 17:13:37.654
Comment on Blogs as disintermediation by James Robertson
Based on what I've read on Scoble's blog, all the editing is self imposed. I'm sure there would be consequences if he (or the others) strayed into unsafe waters. On the other hand, I'm in the same boat as they are