This article in Business Week is getting a lot of attention from bloggers like Steve and Yan. It seems that Microsoft, Macromedia, Sun and other large corporations have embraced blogs to connect workers with customers – as recommended in the Cluetrain Manifesto. The author thinks that once company secrets begin to be spilled, there will be a backlash, but for now bloggers inside companies are enjoying the honeymoon.
In an era of fragmented media, with companies struggling to get their message out any which way, blogs are becoming a kind of undercover megaphone. One way to think of them is as the latest guerrilla marketing tool, a new kind of brand bait.
They’ll likely backfire, though, if employers attempt to exert control. "Companies inevitably will try to co-opt blogs," says Dan Gillmor, author of We, the Media, a book about blogging due out next month.
