Google’s summer of politics

Forget about summer of code, this year something else is at the top of Google’s list.

One thing that’s interesting about Google’s role in the Open Access wireless debate is how they are communicating their intent to invest $4.6 billion: via their blog. Or, more specifically, via their public policy blog. That appears to be a new format, one that I can see having quite a bit of potential with the FT500. I can find two other instances of that type that explicitly have policy in the name: Cisco and Verizon - companies that are, like Google, quite likely to have an idea or two when it comes to networks, access and legislation. And when you think about it, it all makes perfect sense. You’re a large corporation, you want to address a specific clientèle (e.g. lawmakers) and you want to make sure that people know where you stand on certain issues. Why wait for some ailing tech publication to report when you can start you own blog. Why make it “just” a general-purpose public relations blog when you can be much more specific, with different blogs for different stakeholders? Even better, you can get rid of cable news while you’re at it and have your CEO explain your strategy on YouTube, not only to a bunch of lawmakers but to anyone who wants to listen (and given that it’s Google that we’re talking about, that might be a few people). It’s an extremely convenient way to make sure that you reach those that you want to talk to (and influence) and I’d be surprised if those three stay the only blogs of their kind for long.

Corporate social responsibility, recruiting, knowledge management, customer service… it seems there’s a virtual kaleidoscope of functions a company blog can have, and people invent new forms all the time.

Now, guess in which area of use corporate blogs look least promising (well, at least from my point of view).

In the one most of us initially thought of when the term “corporate blog” was coined.

Advertising.

Edit: Danny Sullivan has posted a very nice summary of what Google has been doing with the policy blog so far.