Fortune 500 Companies that have Official Blogs

I came across this Wiki that tracks which Fortune 500 companies maintain official blogs. There are about 30 as of now that include Nike, McDonalds, Southwest Airlines among many technology company blogs. I am sure the list will grow with time.

Pew/Internet Predictions for the Future

Pew/Internet along with Elon University has come up with the predictions about how the internet will shape in 2020. There are two camps, as they are almost always and while both are enthusiastic about the future one is a little less than the others. There are many predictions that sound outlandish now, but if I am alive in 2020, I would sure like to compare the reailty with the results then.

Think Flat? I would Like it if they rather Think Infosys

I have been reading the Infosys blog Think Flat for a while now. Here is a complete post from the site:

In speaking with many clients about how to compete in a flat world, I often hear something to the effect of “We are global, we operate in 35 countries.”

On this point, it is important to be clear. The Flat world means running operations that are connected globally – dependent on one another - not just present in many places. Often, however, operations in different countries operate independent of one another and operate quite differently.

A flat world company will use mathematicians in Budapest to analyze shopping patterns in London so the designers in Paris can direct the manufacturers in Beijing just at the marketing engine in LA cranks up. And do it quickly in complete coordination, at a staggering low cost structure. It is not about having independent operations in Hungary, Britain, France, China and the US whose financials get rolled up at quarter end - although that likely is a step in the right direction.

I really feel happy to see any corporate blogging happening in India, but I would really, really like it if the blog acquires a more company specific focus. For if I want to see a discussion on expansion strategy, there are many other sources too, like HBSWK.

Click Fraud: Business Week Story

Business Week has an interesting story and a growing comment section on Click Fraud on internet advertising. Check it out.

Fleischmann's daily immersion in click statistics fuels his indignation. How, he wants to know, did he receive traffic this summer from PCs in South Korea which are clicking on insurance1472.com and insurance060.com? The only content on these identical sites -- and five other clones with similar names -- are lists of Yahoo ads, which occasionally have included MostChoice promotions. Fleischmann's spreadsheets revealed, not surprisingly, that all of the suspected Korean clickers left his site in a matter of seconds, and none became customers. The two individuals registered as owning the mysterious insurance sites are based in South Korea. They didn't respond to requests for comment, and most of the sites disappeared in late summer, after MostChoice challenged Yahoo about them.

Fleischmann, like most other advertisers, has agreed to let Google and Yahoo recycle his ads on affiliated sites. The search engines describe these affiliates in glowing terms. A Google "help" page entitled "Where will my ads appear?" mentions such brand names as AOL.com (TWX ) and the Web site of The New York Times. Left unmentioned are the parked Web sites filled exclusively with ads and sometimes associated with click-fraud rings.

McDonald's Corporate Responsibility Blog: Where is the Engagement with the Readers?

Happened to stumble upon McDonald's Corporate Responsibity Blog. They seem to be coming under a lot of fire for including a toy Hummer with every Happy Meal.

McDonald's response leaves a lot to be desired.

I'm traveling in Europe, on vacation with my family, but I've noticed that a lot of comments are still coming in on the Hummer issue. I know I need to offer something more to the dialogue. It seems I've been roundly criticized for my posting on the topic. I hear you and your criticisms. I have opinions. We all do. The important thing is that we listen to--and respect--one another's viewpoints. That's the mission of this blog. To be frank, I've been hoping for more comments, more dialogue. This Hummer issue has definitely stirred things up. And I think that's good. So I hope you'll continue to tell me what you think, because it's so important to me--and to CSR as well.

-- Bob

Very rightly a reader responds:

Bob, while I greatly appreciate McD's CSR efforts, I would very much like to see your response to a number of the comments left by readers to previous postings. It's very hard to have a dialog with someone who never seems to talk *back* to us. It makes your readers feel unappreciated - even if you do create another posting telling us that you appreciate the feedback... really, you do. The secret here is that the community doesn't necessarily expect you to SOLVE everything here - but we do want you engaged. When all we get from you, though, is another generic, scripted, corp-speak posting, we have absolutely no feeling that you are sincere. Please take a look at Dell's blog and see how their headline blogger responds in comments to their readers. Dell has come a long way. I hope that you and McDonald's can, too. For your reference, here is a link to a comment thread with a response by Lionel. http://www.direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2006/09/04/2516.aspx#comments

Boston Globe won't Publish GM's Response: Well they Post it on The Fast Lane!

I like it. The Boston Globe wrote a critical piece about GM and would not publish their response in the paper. Well, they published it on their blog GM fastLane Blog. I really like the way I see this communication happening (Disclaimer: I have no in depth knowledge about the issue discussed at the Globe and by GM but I do like the way GM used its blog). Have a look at the post that begins like this:

(Editor’s note: Journalist Derrick Jackson of The Boston Globe recently attacked Detroit’s automakers in his syndicated column. Below is our response. We submitted this to the Globe, but the newspaper declined to run it, citing its policy of not accepting op/eds that respond to Globe columns. The Globe did run a much shorter version of this response in their letters to the editor column Saturday (Sept. 16). We asked that they include this blog’s address at the end of the letter, so their readers could see the full text. They declined. The Miami Herald also ran the Jackson column, and also declined to run our response. Fortunately, our blogs give us a chance to give you the full story, from our point of view, and expand the debate beyond the Globe’s op/ed page. Let us know what you think.)