The document discusses the concept of blogs, their origins, and various formats, such as photoblogs and videoblogs. It highlights the use of blogging within corporate environments, particularly by IBM, for communication and marketing purposes while addressing the advantages and disadvantages, including privacy concerns and potential leaks of internal information. Overall, blogs foster collaboration and personalized communication but pose risks to corporate confidentiality.

1. Blogs Case Analysis: IBM

2. 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?

3. 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 Blogging http://computer.howstuffworks.com/blog1.htm

4. 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/13771 http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=13771

5. 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?

6. Xanga – a photoblog http://www.xanga.com/

7. 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.

8. IBM “Global Innovation Outlook” Blog http://gio.typepad.com/ Links to other newsfeeds, blogs, sites Today’s entry

9. 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?

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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