Emerging Technologies: Blogs
Group 6:
•Chunmin Zhou
•Wendy Han
•Stephanie Goetz
•Tao Lu
L
Cartoon by Harley Schwadron
1
Overview of Blog Project
Key issues understanding
for Corporate Blog
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Blogs’ development history
Corporate blogs technology
Why do corporations launch their own corporation blogs?
How do corporations launch their own corporation blogs?
What benefits can corporations get from launching
corporate blogs?
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L-Z
How many of you have blogs?
How many of you have read blogs?
Z-W
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“Compared to the average internet user, blog
readers are found to be significantly
more likely
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to live in wealthier households.”

“Blog visitors are 11% more likely than the
average internet user to have incomes of 75K or
higher.” 2
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Part 1:
Web + log = Blog ?
Definition
History
Statistics
Types
Functions
Tools
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New Blogs per Day
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5
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Daily Posting Volume
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Blog posts by language
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W-Z
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What is a blog?
A blog, “a contraction of the term "Web log”, is a web site,
usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of
commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as
graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reversechronological order.” 6
A blog is a collection of time-sequenced entries, attributed to
an individual, that can be categorized by the owner and
commented on by others. 7
Blogs illustrate the fusion of key elements of human desire - to
express one's identity, create community, structure one's past
and present experiences - with the main technological features
7.5
of 21st century digital communication.
Z
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History of Blogs
Z
1980’s
1994
Blog
concept
Justin Hall
In radio
>200
million
blogs
8
50
blogs
1999
Peter Merholz
BLOG
2003
2004
Oxford English
dictionary
Vlogs
Steve Garfield
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Types of blogs
Personal Blog:
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A personal blog is an ongoing
diary or commentary by an
individual, is the traditional, most
common blog.
Corporate Blog:
A corporate blog is published
and used by an organization to
reach its organizational goals.
•Corporate bloggers:
•69% are also personal bloggers
•65% are professional bloggers
•Professional bloggers:
•59% are also personal bloggers
•17% are corporate bloggers
Z-W
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Blog readership
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Actions spurred by blogs
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Statistical Highlights
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About 120,000 new blogs were created everyday
in 2007.
About 1,400,000 posts were created per day in
2007.
Most blogs are in Asian language.
Blog readership is higher in Asian countries.
Blogs spur more actions in Western countries.
W-S
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How many Fortune 500 companies are using a
corporate blog?
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ONLY 12% FORTUNE 500 COMPANYS Are Using Blogs
In November 2008.
Runing blogs
61
12%
Not running blogs
439
88%
Runing blogs
S
Not running blogs
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2 Types of Corporate Blogs
Definition
Internal
generally accessed
through the
corporation's Intranet,
is a weblog that any
employee can view.
publicly available
External weblog where company
employees, teams, or
spokespersons share
their views.
S-L
Functions
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•Knowledge Sharing
•Company Culture
•Direct communication throughout
many layers of the corporation
•Easily Accessible
•Communication
•Interaction with public
•Marketing
•React to negative events faster
•Little budget input
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Corporate Blog Tools
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Searching Tools
Technorati
Feedster
IceRocket
Spere
Publishing Tools
Word
Press
Movable
Type
Type
Pad
Drupal
Monitoring Tools
RSS Reader
Co.coments
Commentful
Book Marking
Tools
Del.icio.us
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Co
comment
Digg
Expression
Engine
Searching Tools: Technorati.com
Technorati- Internet search engine
for searching blogs. It uses and
contributes to open source
software. Looks at tags that
authors place on their websites
and categorize search results
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with recent results coming first.
17
Publishing Tools: Wordpress
Wordpress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on
aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and
priceless at the same time. 18
Monitoring Tools: Google Reader
•
RSS – Really Simple Syndication is “a family of web feed
formats used to publish frequently updated works- such as
blog comments, news headlines, video, and audio into a
standardized format.” 19
•
Syndicating is another way to increase readership.
•
RSS reader list: www.aggcompare.com
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RSS Reader
Monitoring Tools: coComment
coComment is a service for
managing, powering and
researching conversations
online. When using
coComment, you can keep
track of your comments across
any site, share them with
friends, and get notified when
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you get a response.
Book marking tools: Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us Delicious is a social bookmarking service, which means you
can save all your bookmarks online, share them with other people, and
see what other people are bookmarking. 22
Part 2: Case studies
External Corporate Blog
Internal Corporate Blog
Third-Party Blog
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Case 1
External Corporate Blog
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External Corporate blogs
Company background: 23
•
•
•
•
•
•
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NASADQ: JAVA
Core bands: Java, Solaris, My SQL, Storage Tek, and
UntraSPARC
Employees: 33,423 worldwide
Ranking : #184 on the Fortune 500 (2008)
FY2008 Revenue: $13.880 billion
Location: more than 100 countries around the globe
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External Corporate blogs
Blog Model
http://blogs.sun.com/
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Tips on adoption and exploitation
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“I suggest clearly defining a blogging strategy and
guidelines.”
“The rule of thumb is simple: Know the guidelines , then let
loose. “
“Be sure to listen to feedback and respond to legitimate
ideas – from inside and outside”
“Write the blog yourself.”
-Jonathan Shcwartz, COO of Sun Microsystems
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Case study 2:
Internal Corporate Blog
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24.5
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Internal corporate blogs
Company background:
W-L
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•
Electrics Consumer Market Share: 16%
•
Employees: 150,000 world wide
•
Ranking : # 66 on the Fortune 500 (2008)
•
FY2008 Revenue: $ 40 billion
•
Location: 1,150 retail stores in US, Canada, and China
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Internal corporate blogs
Ask questions to HQ directly
Ask the Bus
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Four Key Modules
Communication
between
Wiki
Internal
Blog
employees,
Blue Shirt Nation
Questions and
answers
Water
Cooler
Exchange information
and allocate assignment
Like Facebook
Internal corporate blogs
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Highlights from Interview
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“ It puts us on one page. It is basically a good communication tool.”
--- Said by Maggie, Store manager.
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S-Z
Each Best Buy employee can log in the internal blog with a Best Buy
email address.
Using the internal blog is optional for employees, not mandatory.
Employees cannot log in the blog anonymously.
HR department monitors the post to see if the content is proper or not.
The blog integrates sales data in it so that the user can check sales
performance easily.
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Internal corporate blogs
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Feedback about internal blogs from employees
Z
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2 in 5 interviewees chose “ they dislike the
internal corporate blogs” and visit them less
than once per week.

All of them expect the blog to have more creative
format and contents.
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Internal corporate blogs
Lessons from Best Buy's internal corporate blog
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Z-S
Internal corporate blogs can act as effective and efficient
communication tools.
How to engage the employees’ involvement would be a big
challenge, especially in up-down blog.
Internal corporate blogs will be more useful to those positions
who need to communicate with other colleagues frequently.
All employees have opportunity to post at anytime and use is
optional.
Risk of negative comments will be lower in internal corporate
blogs.
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Case study 3:
Third Party Blog
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Third party blogs

“In late 2001, BzzAgent.com founder and CEO Dave Balter
realized that marketers weren't harnessing the power of word of
mouth (WOM). “
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“Today BzzAgent has grown to become the world's first WOM
(word of mouth) media channel, allowing agencies and clients
to develop and execute their own WOM campaigns through
their community of trained Agents”
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Oct 2008 :
“500,000 Agents in their international network of WOM
volunteers, which is growing by 2,000-4,000 members per week
(talk about what the agents do)
They have over 500 programs under their belt
80 employees working hard to make Agents and clients happy”
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Third party blogs
What about the costs of BzzAgent?
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“Requires a minimum investment of $300,000 in both WOM
media and your selected challenge medium
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BzzAgent guarantees that the average difference in
performance for will be 20% or greater. If it’s anything less, then
BzzAgent will refund all costs associated with the program”
36
Third party blogs
How does BzzAgent Measure their sales
per campaign?
“Sales-Based ROI Measurements: We
conduct pre- and post-campaign sales
baseline measurements, compare sales in
BzzAgent markets vs. non-BzzAgent
markets and use traceable coupons,
websites, e-mail links and loyalty cards to
identify and analyze sales and acquisition
impact.” 30
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31
Third party blog
BzzCampaigns
•BzzCampaign for Dunkin Donuts for their new “low calorie”
Latte coffee drink.
•Objective: To educate consumers of their product and to
learn about what consumers feel about their product by
putting the product directly in their hands.
•Strategy: 12 Week campaign, targeting consumers in
Detroit, Cleveland, and Boston. They gave out vouchers free
for one Latte Lite
•Outcome: “-Reached 111,272 people
- 96% of agents said at least one person they
reached bought a Latte
-After 8 weeks, sales in Detroit, Cleveland, and
Boston were now 5% higher then the rest of the market”
Third party blog
BzzAgent Lessons
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If your corporation has little to no time to set up or manage a
blog, you may want to consider
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If you think your corporation may benefit from WOM, you may
want to consider

If your company does not have a lot of money to spare to use
a marketing campaign agency, you may not want to consider
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Part 3: Lessons for GM
How do we measure
the success of blogs?
Challenges:
Privacy and security
Negative comments
Law issue
W
Cartoon by Charles Barsotti
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How to measure success of blog
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• What values does your
blog create/ bring to
customers?
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•
•
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Traffic
Links
Technorati ranking
Comments
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Challenges – Privacy and information security
Blog Type
External
&
Internal
Third-Party
Solutions
§Establish
clear blogging guidelines
§Limit bloggership
§Identification
§Monitoring & censorship
§Sign
agreements contract with the
agent
W-z
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Challenges – Deal with negative comments
American Airlines’ of a crisis blog
----quiet launch and quiet discontinue
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• The American
Airlines blog,
launched in early
2008 is no longer
available on
blogger.
Z Source: http://blog.holtz.com/index.php/weblog/comments/american_airlines_quiet_launch_of_a_crisis_blog/
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Challenges – Deal with negative comments
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The first post includes a video offering step-by-step instructions on
how to contact the company online;
The second post announces the airlines’ return to a regular flight
schedule and return service to normal.
Few comments followed, one of them was “Returning service to
normal is relative when you take into account how horrible AA
service is ‘normally.’ ”
……lots of voices questioned AA: The fact that they haven’t
announced publicly makes me wonder how genuine AA is about
listening…… I’m sick of the “here to listen” schtick……
I want AA to tell me what the hell is going on and when and
how things are going to be fixed.
……
……
American Airline Blog-AA conversation discontinued in Oct. 2008.
Now, we are back down to 61 companies blogging in the Fortune 500,
which was 62 in Sep.2008
. (Fortune 500 business blogging wiki, )
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Challenges – Deal with negative comments
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Z-S
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Select knowledgeable employees and great
communicator to write comments.
Keep a watchful eye. 35
Give a courteous, professional and quick response
directly in blog comments.
Keep track on all links to know where they are out
there.
Declare blog policies as clear as you can.
Thank the blogger. Look on the bright side: they’re
making you getting tons of attention and your blog
more creditable.
“Be humble enough to accept that there may be more
than one way to get things done and our way might
not suit everyone's needs.” 35.5
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Challenges – Legal issues
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Kryptonite Lock Company
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–
–
–
–
s
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Faulty locks were produced.
People were able to pick with a Bic. pen
This was openly discussed in the Blogosphere
and Kryptonite initially decided to ignore the
comments posted
2004, Class Action Suit Finalized
Suit cost $10 mill. for a company making $25 mill.
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Challenges – Legal issues
Kryptonite’s Lessons
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In this case it would have been more
effective if this corporation would have
responded back in the blogosphere,
addressing the issue and apologizing instead
of ignoring their concerned customers whom
now feel neglected.
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Challenges – Legal issues
How to avoid legal issues 37
Do not post “outside” articles in your blog and incorporate this
rule in your policies.
If there has been material posted in your blog, the material must
be removed as soon as possible under the “Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (U.S).”(no specific amount of time found)
Respond Quickly to negative comments. If you neglect this
opportunity to fix a problem (i.e.. Faulty locks) you may end up in
a legal battle. Blogs comments, or lack there of, can be dug up
for evidence in court.
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Executive Highlights
-what general managers have got to know?
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Selection
Adoption
Exploitation
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Know your
blogging
goals
and
audiences
W
Establish
clear
blogging
polices.
Educate
employees.
Consistently
update your
blogs
Never neglect
negative
comments.
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Let loose, blog, and lead…
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references
1.2. comScore Media Metrix (Aug. 2005) “Behaviors of the Blogosphere: Understanding the Scale, Composition, and Activities of
Weblog Audiences,” comScore Networks, Inc. pg.9
3. The State of the Live Web, 2007, http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html
4. The State of the Live Web, 2007, http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html
5. The State of the Live Web, 2007, http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/blog
7. The Six Key Dimensions of Understanding Media, Yates et al., MIT Sloan Management Review, Winter 2008, P67.
7.5 The Psychology of Blogging: You, Me, and Everyone in Between
Laura J Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic. The American Behavioral Scientist. Thousand Oaks: Sep 2008. Vol. 52, Iss. 1; pg. 60
8. http://www.slais.ubc.ca/COURSES/libr500/05-06-wtl/www/A_Cho/history.htm
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
10. State of the Blogosphere, http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/who-are-the-bloggers
11. A Corporate Guide to the Global Blogosphere, http://www.edelman.com/image/insights/content/WhitePaper011107sm.pdf, P5
12. A Corporate Guide to the Global Blogosphere, http://www.edelman.com/image/insights/content/WhitePaper011107sm.pdf, P9
13. Businesses embrace blogging, Rich Karpinski, B to B, Chicago: Jun 9, 2008, Vol. 93, Iss. 8; pg. 1, 2 pgs
14. http://www.bizreport.com/2008/08/the_pros_and_cons_of_a_corporate_blog (10/5/2008)
15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/corporate-blog (10/5/2008)
16. Strategies and tools for Corporate blogging, John Cass , Elsevier Inc., 2007
17. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technorati
18. http://wordpress.org/
19. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss
20. Blogging 101 for CPAs Guido L Geerts, Myunghee Kim. The CPA Journal. New York: Jul 2005. Vol. 75, Iss. 7; pg. 12, 2 pgs
21. http://www.cocomment.com/about
22. http://delicious.com/about
23. Sun Microsystems Corporate overview 2008, http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/SunCorporateBackgrounder.pdf
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References (cont.)
24. If You Want to Lead, Blog, Opinion by Jonathan Schwartz, Harvard Business Review,Nov 2005, Vol 83 Issue 11, p30-30, 1p, 1
color
24.5 Harnessing the Power of the Oh-So-Social WEB, Ernoff et al., MIT Sloan Management Review, Spring 2008 Vol, 49, No. 3
25. Best Buy 2008 Annual Financial Report, http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=83192&p=IROL-reportsannual
26. Best Buy, Customer Centricity
http://www.accenture.com/Global/Services/By_Industry/Retail/Client_Successes/BestBuyCustomerCentricity.htm
27. On site interview with Maggie Key and other BestBuy employees.
28. http://www.bzzagent.com/pages/Page.do?page=History
29. 30. BzzAgent WOM Impact Guarantee, http://www.bzzagent.com/pages/Page.do?page=BzzAgent-Impact-Guarantee
31. Dunkin’s Donut Latte Lite Bzzcampain
http://www.bzzagent.com/downloads/BzzAgent_CaseStudy_Dunkin%20Donuts.pdf
32. Blog marketing, Jeremy Wright, , Mcgraw-Hill Comapies, 2006 ed
33.http://blog.holtz.com/index.php/weblog/comments/american_airlines_quiet_launch_of_a_crisis_blog/
34. CHATTING TO CUSTOMERS AT SOUTHWEST Angela Vargo. Strategic Communication Management. Chicago: Jun/Jul 2006. Vol.
10, Iss. 4; pg. 3, 1 pgs
Also, BLOG: GROWTH PRINCIPLES,Sona Hathi. Strategic Communication Management. Chicago: Oct/Nov 2008. Vol. 12,
Iss. 6; pg. 3, 1 pgs
35. Jump on the Blog Wagon Jonathan Paisner. Journal of Accountancy. New York: Jun 2006. Vol. 201, Iss. 6; pg. 28, 1 pgs
35.5 BLOG: INSIDE OUT Sona Hathi. Strategic Communication Management. Chicago: Oct/Nov 2008. Vol. 12, Iss. 6; pg. 3, 1 pgs
36. Scoble,R., and Isreal, S. (2006), “Naked Conversations: how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers, “John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken New Jersey
37. Anonymous. (Apr.2008) “What You Should Know About Using Web 2.0,” Vol. 85, Iss4; pg. 10, HR Focus, New York
38. Mastering the Three Worlds of Information Technology, McAfee, Andrew, Harvard Business Review, Nov 2006, Vol 84
39. Lessons in Corporate Blogging, Nicholas Carr, Bussinessweek, 7/18/2006,
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2006/tc20060718_932217.htm/