You don’t have to be everywhere, nor should you want to be. But you do need to engage your curve of the blogosphere, and there is no business case for not doing so.

I’ll be moving over to the States sometime in the Spring and I promise I’ll give it a whirl once I’m there. Which particular motor would you recommend I try it out in?

I think we’re all suspicious these days. Point taken on the people names. We’re still getting our feet wet and we’re not perfect. Most importantly, we’re being transparent, open and honest and we do appreciate the feedback.

We fully understand the network effect possible with blogs but we are in no hurry to be everywhere. This is something we will do in time.

By the way, it’s too bad you never experienced a small-block.

Thanks again for the feedback.

You’ve got to love it.

Absolutely, but the way you are doing it could be much improved. People do not connect with ‘guest columnist’ or with ‘Smallblock historian’ – they connect with other people. Please, I implore you, put names on the blog posts. And find your niche of the blogosphere and link to it on your blogroll. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of the improvements you could make.

You are missing out on the network effect that makes blogs so powerful. Yes, the blog medium is something special, but it’s the blogosphere that makes what can be achieved through blogs so revolutionary.

I’m not dismissing its relevance. I’m not trying to be some kind of blog-snob. Nor am I a hater of corporations. I might be slightly suspicious once in a while, but that’s a different story.

I actually want to like the GM blog. But for me it has too many ingredients missing for it to seem legitimate. Why can there not be a blogroll on it, for example?

In the immortal words of Wham! ‘If you’re gonna do it, do it right. Right?’

While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, and you are correct to assume that the Small-block engine blog was created by the GM PR staff, I don’t think it is fair to discount its relevance just because it was created by a corporation. As you know, all corporations have niches and microcosms and within those areas are unique personalities. A case in point, is the engineering team at GM Powertrain responsible for the Small-block. These people are extremely passionate about what they do, and we thought it would be fitting to share their stories with our customers and enthusiasts. It just so happens that a blog is the ideal medium to do this.

Michael

But if you blog consultants have slight misgivings then fair enough. I know as a mere blog punter I’m a bit unsure. Even the Disney blogs makes a fist – albeit slightly ham – of a few outward links.

But they are missing all the stuff that makes blogs work so well – the human voice (who the hell is ‘guest columnist’?), the network (no blogroll?!), the identification of their curve of the blogosphere…None of that is there. Someone just heard about blogs and thought, “Ooh, new thing, let’s do it.” They need help to make it work.

We’re getting so used to seeing blogs with a ‘personality’ that we find those without as slightly anomalous.

I really like the aspect of community that blogging can provide to a subject, but you at least need some way of linking to various other similar blogs.

Otherwise you’re left with nothing short of a simple news page with an RSS feed.