September
25, 2006
Copyright Mediaware Infotech Pvt. Ltd. |
Blogs
"forced" Dell, Apple & Sony to replace millions of overheating, inflammable laptop
batteries
Blogs' Influence on Mainstream Media
Recently, Dell
and Apple agreed to recall 5 million laptops - by far the largest recall to date
- because of overheating batteries which sometimes burst into flames. Some enthusiasts
went so far as to say that such an unprecedented step was possible only because
of blogs. Exaggerated as that may sound, one thing is amply clear : blogs played
a crucial role in spreading this information* - thus
making it impossible for the concerned companies to push the issue under their
carpets.
But seriously, with comments like "we'll keep posting these (photos
of flaming laptops) until we see a recall or a solution, so please, Dell, treat
'em right", what else could they do ?
And finally what happened to Dell?
Once it agreed to replace the batteries, it did the next best thing - it set up
a special web-site (www.dellbatteryprogram.com) for guiding irate customers on
how to get their battery replaced. And simultaneously published postings from
its executives who diagnosed the fault on its customer-service blog (www.direct2dell.com).
If
mainstream media like newspapers ("fourth estate") is meant to act as informal
regulators on behalf of the citizenry, then this must be equally true with blogs.
In fact, even more true since blogs are a form of "citizens reporting for citizens".
After all, there cannot be a watchdog more effective than a "customers collective"
!
And let's not forget, the influence of blogs increase exponentially because
they influence mainstream media to report their findings.
*
Like wildfire!
BLOGS
IN THE CORPORATE WORLD
Upto
10% of Fortune 500 Cos. have set up business blogs for their "user/consumer community".
Here is a sample list taken from Wikipedia :
| Company
| Blog
Site | | Amazon
| Amazon
Web Services Blog | | Cisco
| Cisco
High Tech Policy Blog | | Dell
| one2one | | eBay
| eBay
Developers Program Blog | | EDS
| EDS'
Next Big Thing Blog | | GEC
| GE
Global Research blog | | General
Mills | Real
Baking with Rose Levy Beranbaum | | General
Motors | FastLane
Blog | | Google
|
Google Blog | | Hewlett-Packard
| HP
Blogs | | Honeywell | HoneywellBlogs | | ING
Group | My
Cup of Cha | | Intel
Corporation | Intel
Geek Blogger | | IBM
| Guide
to IBM Blogs | | McDonald's | Open
For Discussion | | Microsoft | MSDN's
Microsoft Blogs | | Motorola
| Snowboarding
Team blogs [lame] | | Nike
| Nike
Basketball Blog | | Oracle
| OraBlogs | | Southwest
Airlines | Nuts
about Southwest | | Sprint | Things
That Make You Go Wireless | | Starwood
Hotels | The
Lobby | | Sun
Microsystems | Jonathan
Schwartz | | Texas
Instruments | Video
360 Blog | | Time
Warner | Jason
Calacanis' Blog | | Boeing | Randy's
Journal | | Viacom
| Real
World/Road Rules Blog | | Wells
Fargo | Guided
by History | | Xerox |
Palo Alto Research Center | | Yahoo! | Yahoo!
Search Blog |
|
Wikipedia
& Brand Search Results
Recently it was discovered that
Wikipedia articles pertaining to top U.S. advertisers have been among the most
highly ranked pages in Google direct searches. This was reported in a study by
Micro Persuasion. The study was compiled in a surprisingly simple manner - by
typing the top 100 advertisers from AdAge into Google!
That most search
results include entries from citizen media like Wikipedia & blogs is common knowledge
by now. Naturally millions of consumers who hear about products (thanks to the
mass media advertising dollars?) and research them on search engines are influenced
by Wikipedia. So what's new?
The Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which is
run by by a huge collective of individual consumers like you & me. So while a
brand may "well-optimized" for search engines, with well-placed web pages spewing
edited content, the odd Wikipedia article about the brand may "speak" quite the
opposite (written as it will be, by a consumer!)
By appearing in the top 10
results of any search for that brand, the Wikipedia content suddenly becomes significant.
Once again, "citizen journalism" to the fore! |
Mediaware Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
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