While the complaints about Google not having a major blogosphere presence will probably never go away, its good to know that at least some Googlers can be counted on to respond to blog posts in their own blogs.
Time Bray posted some questions he had on Google AdSense for Feeds. He wanted to know how the hell someone was supposed to know how many feed subscribers they had (I still can’t figure it out), and what some strange language in the AdSense for Feeds Terms and Conditions meant.
In what he called “another triumph for the blogosphere” (and what I call “how the blogosphere does customer service better“), Jason Shellen gave the answers on his blog. Very cool. Jason also said:
- This all brings up a wider question? Why do we bloggers look for a man or woman on the inside? I’m guessing it’s because of the networked conversations that Doc and Co. wrote about years ago in the Cluetrain, that smart companies should engage and avoid the carpet-bombing approach to PR and communications. It’s admittedly hard to get right, even for someone who wants to do the right thing.
I don’t know how some of you manage to have such rich and fantastic blogs, but I’m lucky if I add a few things to my moblog or linkblog these days. I don’t know if it’s a case of “When your winning”, or if the stream just gets a little quicker when it’s gushing and it’s all you can do to paddle. Though I don’t blog as much as I would like, I’m certainly reading a ton and so are a lot of smart folks over here in Mountain View. Some of them even have time to blog more than I.
However, sometimes it’s nice just to have a friend that listens. I’m listening and acting behind the scenes mostly these days, I hope you don’t mind. I’ll do what I can to make sure it’s still a two-way conversation.
I’m sure someone in Google’s PR department could blog, and quite successfully. Everyone knows their PR guys and gals are pretty likable (the media loves them) and they could probably blog pretty effectively. Keep in mind, an efficient and smart person can easily blog in their 20% time
(via John Battelle)
Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.
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