BlogsCase Analysis: IBM

• Comes from “web-log”• Single page websites featuring

written entries• Can have links to other web pages• Reverse chronological order• Blogosphere• Personalized Publishing

What Are Blogs?

Example of a blog page: notice the entries take up most of the page, but the left hand margin shows links to other sites.

Howstuffworks Blogginghttp://computer.howstuffworks.com/blog1.htm

This is an example of a profile on MySpace. It is public, and was easily found and accessible with a simple search.

MySpace shows whether or not the user is online, so you can contact them

Your profile is whatever you choose to put up, and it can be seen by everyone in the network.

MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/13771http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=13771

• Many different types (photoblog, videoblog…etc… )

• Social networking sites• Post entries – can be an online journal, or for

specific topics• Way of communicating with friends, and people

in the network• Some companies use it to communicate cross-

departmentally

What Does it Do?

Xanga – a photobloghttp://www.xanga.com/

The IBM “Blogroll”http://domino.research.ibm.com/ibmcom/planetibm.nsf/pages/bytag.html?Open&tag=blogging

A list of “tags” each of which is linked to bloggers posting on a given topic.

IBM “Global Innovation Outlook” Bloghttp://gio.typepad.com/

Links to other newsfeeds, blogs, sites

Today’s entry

• Simple Concept, Easy Interface• Web applications with external

database: WordPress, Drupal• Hosted Solutions: Blogger, MySpace• Corporate blogging encouraged on

open platforms: IBM employees use Movable Type, WordPress, and many others

How does it work?

Advantages

• Collaboration & hierarchical “tagging” structure

• Community formation, two-way connection

• More personalized than marketing

• Low cost or free in many cases, no training required

• Faster communication than traditional methods

Different from existing technology?

Disadvantages

• Easy access to information about people, privacy concerns

• Leaking of internal corporate information might have very damaging results for business operations

• While “tagging” and additional meta-data help structure the data (e.g. for data mining), it is still largely unstructured

Benefits • Blogs are more personal, IBM viewers are more

comfortable with the information they receive from employees and feel it is more reliable and personal.

• Used INTERNALLY to enhance the communication and culture in corporation

• Used EXTERNALLY for marketing, branding or PR

Risk/Cost

• information released is not filtered before posting potential leak out of company secrets, get company is legal issues and give company wrong image

• loss of employment or other consequences when there’s a violation of info posted on company websites