This fast-paced, ever-growing new channel never fails to surprise me. The power of blogs is amazing. Any "Joe Doe" can start a blog and write about anything - me included; yet it is changing the way businesses operate and interact with consumers.
Back when I worked for Nokia we had this internal joke: "if you want something changed in a phone you have a better chance of being heard by the program manager if you blog about it". And that was almost true. The program manager used to sit and read all major gadget/phone bloggers. That's how important this new channel is. It has shortened the distance to the end-user.
And obviously, this is not a one-way street. Learning the power of this new media many companies are using it to communicate back to consumers in a friendly and direct way (e.g. http://thenokiablog.com/; http://googleblog.blogspot.com/). Others are even hiring "professional" bloggers to do their PR.
In sum, whatever your company is doing: keep an eye out for what bloggers are writing about!
Old but interesting article: Blogs Will Change Your Business
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