Bloggers - what is their role in the media?

Our group's topic was "Bloggers. Are they newsmakers, newsfinders, opinion shapers or annotators"? We were a small group - but lively - including owners of businesses and people who although not owning the company would obviously have significant influence on decision-making. Experience included very senior corporate, finance, media, small business networks, creative, advertising, technology transfer. Two or three bloggers in the group.

These notes which I took as host of the group are mere snippets from a lively discussion - I'm hoping others who participated will add/comment/disagree etc.

One person was interested in the possibilities for using blogs to help with a small business network, another as part of developing corporate cohesion across several formerly discrete companies or business units. Interest expressed in the intra-corporate possibilities of blogs "behind the firewall", ie in VPN mode.

Discussion about Australia's government majority owned (for a while) telco Telstra and its Now We Are Talking group of blogs It was stated that the blog/s had been introduced on the initiative of one of the new American execs at Telstra and not without angst/resistance from others at a high level. Are the Telstra bloggers newsmakers, newsfinders, opinion shapers or annotators? Is there mainly a 'top down' view expressed - 'depends on who you talk to'. Feeling was that this was largely annotation. Noted there is some filtering by a person or persons with editorial overview, but as far as we know this is for inappropriate language etc, rather than to censor deviations from a corporate line. See also the acerbic post on Telstra's blogging venture, by Future of Media panelist Mark Jones on his Filtered blog - Now we are NOT talking.

One participant felt that the only reason for a blog or blogs would be to attract people to the company website. There was some inconclusive discussion about the community-building aspect and also the role of blogs in enabling a company to be more transparent.

One consultant regularly sees opportunities for clients to promote themselves more effectively by setting up a blog, especially in industries where there is tangible value in demonstrating openness, transparency, honesty, and getting people to trust the company - not every client wants to do that or follow through with a blog once initiated. A blog doesn't suit every client.

Noted in the small business context that only 44% of Australian businesses have a website.

Mention of the challenge of seeing that a blog could help the company you are working for and then having to get the CEO and/or senior management onside to enable it to happen. Wariness? Scepticism?

Brief discussion about wikis.

Mention of Trevor Cook as a leading and prolific blogger in the PR industry - see his Corporate Engagement group blog.