What makes a corporate blog fake?

2007 November 29
by Cornelius

This morning over coffee, I discussed my thesis project with a colleague. At some point I described last year’s Wal-Mart flog incident to him and I came up with several plausible reasons why certain criteria have to be met in order for a blog to be accepted as “authentic” by the blogosphere, especially if it’s a company blog. Alex, who does incredibly interesting research on the semantics of Web 2.0 metaphors, had a very sensible suggestion in spite of my ideas: I could just ask people for their opinion.

So that’s what I’ll do. Whether you’re a company blogger, PR pro, consultant, or just someone who reads company blogs, I would be grateful for your response to the following question:

Under what circumstances would you describe a corporate blog as fake?

This is not just a random opinion poll. I am writing a research article at the moment and one of my central questions is what expectations people have towards blogs, why companies find blogs attractive for public-facing communication and what exactly happens when a company is accused of “faking” a blog. So your responses have a very real chance of benefiting my research and being cited.

You can either post a comment here, ping me through your own blog or send me an email – whatever works best for you.

Thanks a lot in advance and do pass this on!

from → Corporate Blogging, Fake Blogs, Research

1 Comment
2007 December 9
Stephen Smith permalink

Cornelius – I’d be interested to see your conclusions about fake blogging when you’ve finished. I’m doing a study at the moment into corporate blogging and I’m trying to get a handle on how PR’s want to utilise blogging. If you get 2 minutes have a go at my survey – http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=tzFhoPaVPcuyeBSS1aiynw_3d_3d

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