[Translated by the author from an previous entry made in French in 2006. Some facts have been updated.]

Blogs have become a fact of life. In a business context, their use, presence and the nature of their content is food for thought.

Some numbers
1.4 new blogs see the light of day every second worldwide. Their numbers still double pretty much every six months. Technorati, currently counts over 70 million blogs (May 2007). These blogs attract as many readers. In fact, more than 275 millions users of RSS feeds alone are known today (RSS feeds are these on-demand-type-of-alarms that users can program for themselves to be made aware of new contents that are published on blogs of interest).

So every minute, zillions of people read stuff on zillions of blogs, and are influenced by what they read. Who are these people?

Is this post a criticism of bloggers? No, it is a criticism of readers.

The issue
I'm at a client during a work session. We are working hard on a new entry strategy in the US for one of my client's products. Suddenly someone states a surprising opinion about blogs and their critical importance to communicate with the moms and pops in the marketplace.

- "I read that on a blog the other day. Apparently blogs are now read by everybody and so I think that..."
- "Stop! Please. What "blog" exactly? Who says? Where's the data to support this statement?", I interjected.

Not that I did not believe the guy –well...– but it is a habit of mine to always question the source of an information and judge of its full nature. Is it that I have some journalist DNA in me? Dunno. Nevertheless this is a very real and good practice to apply in everyday life, a principle taught to me by a McGill Prof some –too many!- years ago.

Professor René Y. Darmon, to name him, always reminded us during his marketing research class to research the source of data and information and to try to understand the motivation for the editors to publish same, thus, being able to be more vigilant in their interpretation. Not a bad advice indeed. I do try to use it as much as possible.

Solution : consciousness
Everybody is free to "blog", of course. Everybody is free to read these blogs as well. Of course! However, when one reads a blog, one should always take a moment to read on about the author and think about the reasons for this author to publish its post. Funny how just a little bit of thinking can shed a lot of light onto a situation...

Any reader worth being called a serious person ought to distinguish opinions of bloggers –real experts or self-proclaimed– for reliable and valid data and information, and deal with it in a responsible manner.

Blogs are here and, from now on, will be a factor in the business communications world. The phenomenon is irreversible and still growing in size and significance. But be cautious of careless treatment of information found on blogs.

Although most bloggers are independent and like to proclaim themselves as such, not all are serious, valid, or reliable sources of information. Blogs are often no more than just personal opinions. No judgement on my part here about the quality of these opinions! Many are really of great value to decision makers. Everybody is entitled to their opinions and free to make them public within the limits of what society accepts.

However, to consider information originating from a blog as God's truth is a problem. Good judgement should always be exercised. Readers should make the conscious and intellectual effort to put information in context and treat it responsibly. This is true now more than ever before in my belief.

Most probably it will require a re-education from our current habit of fast, instant consumption of information as it is bombarded onto us by the media, and now through zillions of blogs.

... Worth thinking about!

Original published on Blog Vectis
Also read this entry on the subject of blogs on the AMM-PCM interactive marketing blog (in French).