Stone (2002, p.160) asserts that one of the first major companies to go on record as officially using blogs as a corporate communications solution was Macromedia, when in 2002 they opened corporate Weblogs. Macromedia is the company behind the popular web authoring software, Flash, Dreamweaver, and Shockwave. It launched a few weblogs as part of its strategy of introducing new services (Stone 2002, p. 160).
To begin with, five of Macromedia’s community managers created their own weblogs using Radio and Blogger, which are two of the most popular blog publishers (Manjoo, May 9. 2002, p. 1). The purpose of the blogs was to provide a forum for the managers to discuss new products, answer questions and to show developers how to use some of the new features. The community managers would write in blogstyle communications to ensure a more casual tone. It was important to Macromedia that its blogs seemed true, and it wanted its weblogs to be perceived as helpful to readers (Manjoo,May 9. 2002, p. 1). Not only did Macromedia save tens of thousands of dollars in call-centre support, the blogs have grown into online communities that give Macromedia valuable customer feedback.
Here is what Matt Brown, Macromedia Community Manager, has to say about Macromedia using blogs:
"The idea is that we can get information back to the community more rapidly than a lot of other channels. We do a lot of that anyway, but we do that mostly on a 1-1 basis or spread through a lot of other venues. This way we can bring in the important information to one place and get that out to people." (Stone 2002, p.160)
Macromedia has been criticised for being biased and having a vested interest in product promotion. Overall, however, Macromedia's blog strategy is a success, as the blogs allow more rapid information flow. Stone (2002, p. 163) argues, “The cross-site discussions that blogs enable provide a great way for people to develop their ideas as they have them and share their experiences in a public forum that can be accessed by others.�
According to Stone (2002, p. 164), “Weblogs enable scalability, speed, archiving capabilities, and they provide context through links to other blogs.� Stone is suggesting that weblogs work well as knowledge management systems. Knowledge management is concerned with the sharing and flow of information, usually within an organisation. As an application of blogging, knowledge management treats the cumulative knowledge of all past, present and future employees of a company or organisation as a valuable commodity (Stone 2002, p. 164).
There are many other companies who are using blogs to assist in business procedures. For example, Socialtext, a firm based in California, uses a wiki (a web page that can be edited by any reader) to track different versions of documents, so that people working on a project can see each other’s changes and go back to earlier versions. In The Economist (2004, p.11) it was reported that since Socialtext launched its product, customers have been active ever since in using the Socialtext software for projects involving a large team.
Even non-tech companies like Dr. Pepper use blogging as a medium to market products and monitor brands and as an internal knowledge management tool. Richards Interactive is an Internet marketing firm that helped Dr. Pepper run a campaign for its new milk-based drink, Raging Cow. It started a blog for the cow-“the cow had his own site,� says director of corporate communications Mike Martin. Then it screened hundreds of young bloggers to find a suitable group to help promote the drink. Dr. Pepper flew the five winners and their parents to Dallas to try the product and gave them several hundred dollars in Amazon gift certificates. The campaign provoked an angry backlash in the blog world, where the relationships between the company and the blogs was seen as commercial and poorly disclosed (McGregor, Apr 2004, p. 3).
As print publications become fewer and fewer, tailored on-line newsletters have begun to replace them. Many organisations, from traditional companies such as Xerox, Exxon and Ford, to the new high-tech giants such as Cisco Systems, Intel and Oracle, increasingly rely on weblogs to exchange information quickly and effectively. Miller Brewing Company’s intranet, “Miller Time,� has a weblog, through which employees offer suggestions to and ask questions of management. Everyone who offers an idea through the Miller intranet is guaranteed a response; such feedback is critical to corporate credibility.
Blogging has enabled Macromedia’s management and other companies to have a better view of the innovator’s ideas within the company, and has offered the ability to capture tacit information in an informal way so that it can be codified later on. However, Bradbury comments (Sep.23, 2003, p. 40) that before any of these advantages can be realised, “a blog-friendly culture is vital- and that is the lowest-tech component of all.�
Back to Corporate_Blogging
Pages of Interest
Go to the Macromedia Homepage
Go to the Socialtext Homepage
Google now has its own weblog
Macromedia's Software
Go to Flash
Go to Dreamweaver
Blog publishers
Go to Radio
Go to Blogger
Reference List
Bradbury, B. (2003, Sep. 23) “From Blogs to k-logs,� Computer Weekly, retrieved from Proquest Database on August 26, 2004.
Manjoo, F. (2002, May. 9) "Flash: Blogging Goes Corporate," retrieved August 27, 2004, from Go to article
McGregor, J. (2004, Apr.) "It's a Blog World After All," Fast Company, retrieved from Proquest Database on August 26, 2004.
Stone, B. (2002) Blogging: Genius strategies for instant Web Content, Indianapolis:New Riders Publishing, ISBN 0735712999.
The Economist (2004) “Blogging goes to work,� The Economist, 13 Mar. 2004, p.11.
Go to User:Catherine_Miller for more sources
Catherine Miller 14:01, 26 Oct 2004 (EST)
