blogs for small businesses

Reaction to today's class on blogs:

One of my doubts about using an open blog for a small company, let's say for a B2C service:

- if the blog is open, as the speaker said today, the discussion can go in any direction and kill the blog rapidly. Not even talking about the reputational issue, if anybody starts on super-models for example, it can really spin off very fast, and it's on your company's web site... We all know how spamers can get creative with keywords, so automated filtering is still risky. We are talking about the company's brand here.

- so you're the moderator (and censor): how much of your time is that going to take? Can a small team afford having their (often unique) professional and talented marketer spending time on reading, filtering and answering blogs all day?

- alternatively, you close the blog to become a newsletter only, but then so long for the customer interaction and feedbacks.

Any solution?

BTW, is that blog suitable for discussion like this one, Dear Moderator ?...

Silicon Alley is back!

THis article from the New York Times really captures some of the revival of web business in the city... The map is particularly great!

"Alive and Well in Silicon Alley"

Measurement and standards in internet video

After hearing from Brian Weiser, our speaker from MAGNA Global, it's clear that what this article discusses cannot last if advertisers are to adopt internet video as a channel. According to this article in Mediaweek, most if not all traffic and statistics in the space are self-reported (and thus not really believable or useful for advertisers.)

"Online Video Measures MIA"

Neither Neilsen nor ComScore is currently tracking the media. Based on his presentation, we'll need standards for ads as well as standard 3rd party metrics so that advertisers can compare to comparable channels when deploying their marketing budgets.