A sceptical rant against business blogs. Don't know why I care really. I think the guy's clueless myself. But does it matter?

Nevertheless I started writing a comment on BubbleGeneration and then remembered my new policy of putting more writing here, rather than scattered around other people's comments sections.

- the only companies doing it are early adopters?

erm ...

- blogs want companies to speak with a "corporate voice"?

not last time I heard

- Businesses already communicate well in various ways?

go ask the customers

- Once people see the alternative, they realize they actually do prefer copy that’s readable, coherent and to the point – puh-lease, to the point!

blogs less readable than corporate happyspeak? The point he's missing is that however crude blog writing is (and it isn't on the blogs I read), it's normally informative, contentful, (even if the content is merely "here's how I feel") rather than a smokescreen designed to produce an impression without saying anything.

- E-mail and the general Web are still the killer apps for online communications in business today – and, last I checked, no experts were predicting their demise.

Not so long ago email and general web weren't considered killer apps either. And blogs don't mean that these older media disappear, though they may change their role

- Personally, I think what’s happening in the newly invigorated field of “word-of-mouth marketing” (in which blogging may play a minor role, though that’s still in question) is a much more interesting overall focus for marketers today.

Pretty much talking at cross-purposes here, aren't we? Most bloggers would put the "newly invigorated word-of-mouth" under the heading "blogging" and will admit that really they're talking about a wider phenomenon that includes blogging along with things like wikis, social software and online discussion fora.

If the author is totally determined to separate blogs from all that and consider them as a single genre of technology, opposed to this more general "word-of-mouth" culture, well ... he's still wrong, but there's perhaps a different argument to be had.

Update : Another comment