Blogging for Dollars -Once the domain of the disgruntled and demented, Web logs are being embraced by business executives.

Blogging for Dollars -Once the domain of the disgruntled and demented, Web logs are being embraced by business executives.

In July, Microsoft Corp. did what would have probably been unthinkable
just a few years ago: the Bellevue, Wash.-based company’s MSN division
launched a commercial Web-log service; that is, a service that enables
customers to set up their own personal online journals. Reportedly,
executives overseeing MSN’s blogging pilot, which is currently offered
only in Japan, expect they’ll eventually sign up 1 million customers.

By John Edwards

In an earlier time, say 2000, managers at Microsoft didn’t appear to
be such big fans of blogs. Actually, few corporate executives were.
Back then, the personal Web pages gave a free and open voice to
customers and ex-employees — too often, irate customers and
disgruntled ex-employees. In some cases, corporations went to court to
try to get business-bashing bloggers to cease and desist.

Things have changed. Blogs, once the domain of the malcontent, have
gone mainstream, thanks in large part to the thousands of Web logs
dedicated to celebrities and defunct TV shows ("Buffy" bloggers, you
know who you are). In the process, business leaders have come to value
what they once feared about Web logs: these online diaries provide an
easy way to reach a large audience. Venture capitalists, for example,
now use Web logs to uncover inventors and entrepreneurs with promising
new ideas. Corporate directors, including those at enterprise resource
planning giant SAP, have launched blogs to help them better
communicate with stakeholders. And managers at some companies,
including Sun Microsystems, use blogs (among other approaches) to talk
to employees and let employees talk to one another….

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