Blogging is Disruptive & Value-Additive

I'm constantly amazed at how quickly conversations in the blogosphere add value.

One example was noted by Shel Israel's post yesterday on the "circle of touch" that linked Lance Armstrong, cancer, Foldera and an Amazon book review (by me). The simple point is that blogging conversations set off a causal chain that adds value to both the personal and the corporate dimensions.

Another example has just occurred for me. It is more conceptual, but still striking.

Mike Driehorst commented yesterday on a business blog entry I composed about blogging in the plastics industry (thanks, Mike). That led me, in turn, to Mike's blog from yesterday Die! Journalism! Die! Die!. Michael's post was part of a debate on the purpose and future of public relations (especially the press release) triggered by Tom Foremski's commentaries on SiliconValleyWatcher.

I can't pretend to add any value to a debate about press releases and the future of PR...hey, I'm just a humble IT guy. But I can perceive the value of linkages, the currency of the debate, and the establishing of relationships enabled simply by blogging, most obviously by its conversational nature.

Moving through another link in the chain, I found today's post by Tom Foremski. He alluded to Scoble's and Israel's keynote presentation at the New Communications Forum Friday (see Blogging is not disrupting mainstream media--it's disrupting...). In that keynote, Robert Scoble spoke about Foldera's 400,000 beta users enlisted in just over 14 days, the only promotional work they did being mentioned by a few A-list bloggers. The chain has circled back on itself.

That's interesting in itself, but part of the value-added was in the content itself...yes, the content. Evidently, Tom Foremski stood up at that keynote and made the following two points:

• online marketing is disrupting mainstream media (specifically search engine marketing)
• blogging isn't disruptive mainstream media; it's disrupting public relations

Now, being an IT guy, I don't know if he's wrong or right. What I do know is that Mike thinks he's wrong and that there is substantial controversy about the issue. Tom's example of the comparative value of Robert Scoble to Microsoft versus their PR firm (Waggoner Edstrom) is a striking one, however (Tom is convinced that Robert's blog has done far more in promoting Microsoft with its customers than anything Waggoner Edstrom can claim to have accomplished).

The value added in this content for me personally is simple. Now I know a little more about marketing than I knew yesterday. It should make reading of my next blog book (Blog Marketing by Jeremy Wright) a little more compelling.

Technorati Tags : "blog, marketing", "Jeremy, Wright", "Mike, Driehorst", "Tom, Foremski", "Shel, Israel", "Robert, Scoble", SiliconValleyWatcher

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