Blogs

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Blogs

• Case Analysis IBM

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What Are Blogs?

• Comes from weblog
• Single page websites featuring written entries
• Can have links to other web pages
• Reverse chronological order
• Blogosphere
• Personalized publishing

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• 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.howstuffwor
ks.com/blog1.htm
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Your profile is whatever you choose to put up,
and it can be seen by everyone in the network.
MySpace shows whether or not the user is online,
so you can contact them

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

MySpace.com - www.myspace.com/13771 http//profile
.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseactionuser.viewprofile
friendID13771
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What Does It Do?

• Many different types (photoblog, videoblogetc )
• 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

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Xanga a photoblog http//www.xanga.com/
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A list of tags each of which is linked to
bloggers posting on a given topic.
The IBM Blogroll http//domino.research.ibm.com/
ibmcom/planetibm.nsf/pages/bytag.html?Opentagblo
gging
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IBM Global Innovation Outlook
Blog http//gio.typepad.com/
Links to other newsfeeds, blogs, sites
Todays entry
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How does it work?

• 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

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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

• 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

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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

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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
  theres a violation of info posted on company
  websites