The Blog Business Summit in San Francisco attracted a bit of attention. Various power bloggers were there, giving their advice and making a case for themselves and their profession to the business world. Some took it well and others not so well.
Susan Kuchinskas over at Internet News picked up on something Scoble said and that’s is that bloggers are needed because they do hold sway in their communities. She quoted him:
“You’re not after me; you’re after the bigger audience, the 98 percent,” he said. “But to get to them, you have to get the connectors to link to you. If you treat the 2 percent of geeks using RSS badly, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.”
She also got DL Byron of Textura Design saying the he turns off his comments feature because they don’t want to take a chance on things like porn spam. He also said this is contrary to what many bloggers suggest and that is that comments are essential.
Washington Post tech writer, Robert MacMillian didn’t have great things to say about the whole affair. His post was called “Blog-Oil Salesmen” and he wasn’t much sold on the idea of the summit. He suggested these individuals were essentially creating their own value for their product and telling businesses how to do the same thing. I agree to a point.
They were tooting their own horns and they were giving themselves value but the way corporations work and the way competition works, this is the best way to do it. Business often goes to those who go out and get it and that’s what these guys are doing. They are offering a service for something these corporations perceive they need. They certainly aren’t the first ones to do it and they won’t be the last.
Also there’s the fact these gentlemen presenting have already been down the road with blogs and they know many of the ins and outs in today’s market place, at least with regard to blogs and getting out information. While it may be fairly simple to go out and find the information, being familiar with how to handle what you put in them and handling spam and negative comments are entirely something else. The offer something the PR field is picking up on and they already know how to do it. It makes perfect sense to me.
Companies have an absolute necessity to control their image as much as possible. There are lots of ways to influence that image companies can do. Blogs is just one of them and who better to talk to than experts?
John Stith is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
