Is blogging a fad?

Is blogging a fad?
"Many executives had a vague idea of what blogging was but dismissed it as a fad or something irrelevant that younger people used to write about there cat." (Blogging for business: everything you need to know and why you should care, by Shel Holtz, Ted Demopoulos) I thought the same way. I thought blogging was for the Internet junkies to keep up on the movie stars and music artist, used to know everything these stars are doing and going to do. Well, that is what I hear on the radio so, that is what I thought. I thought, this is simply a fad that is used to intrude in to peoples lives. I figured we were one step closer to getting rid of this thing we call privacy. But, now I am getting to see the other side of it. Professional blogging. Blogs can be used by businesses for marketing and costumer service. Complain or get information from a business without even talking to anyone. Sounds great to me. According to the "Blogging for business: everything you need to know and why you should care" 70,000 blogs are made daily, the equivalent of one per second. (Blogging for business: everything you need to know and why you should care, by Shel Holtz, Ted Demopoulos) Wow! Whether or not you think it is a fad, that is stunning. They are being used by a lot of people. It would be beneficial to any company to jump on the band wagon. Is blogging a fad? Who knows. The important thing is that there is a great opportunity for any company to reach out client bases they have never had and to have a market they have never had.

Good Blogging Policies

There are many practices that blogger should follow. In an article, written by David D. Perlmutter, some common things that bloggers do that aren't very ethical are listed. Two of these include: plagiarism and misrepresenting themselves or their affiliations. (http://policybyblog.squarespace.com/storage/blogethics--perlmutter.pdf) We all know what plagiarism is and we know that it is illegal and should never be done. Because you can talk to a person you have never before seen or talked to on the internet, it can be so easy to misrepresent yourselves and your company. Doing so is very unethical and in some forms can be illegal as well. These are just two things that should never be done on a blog.

What can professional blogs do for businesses and organizations?

I have been thinking about this question for some time now. I never knew how to answer it because I wasn't sure why a business would want to use one. I found some information that helped me answer the question. In an article from Business Week, by Karen E. Kein, she quoted Patricia Gundry.

"A blog will give you a Web presence that is much more reader- and user-friendly than any ordinary Web site can be. It will also be much less expensive for you to create and maintain," she says. "It will do almost everything a regular Web site can do, and more, and one of the best things is that it can create a more personal relationship with your customer." - Patricia Gundry

(http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/may2006/sb20060515_027053.htm)
I really like the idea of a blog being user friendly. It is easier to navigate a blog than a web page. It would be very easy for a customer or client who has a question to quickly post a blog and ask the question, then have it be answered relatively easily. It is an affective way to market straight to the consumer by making a post on new product or sales or anything of that nature. I feel that professional blogs can be very useful in the marketing area of a business or organization.