Importance of blogs

Apart from my persistent warnings that businesses cannot ignore social networking I've also been banging on, in many speeches and articles, about the increasing importance and influence of bloggers. However, most of the tech CEOs I meet are downright dismissive of bloggers. The CEO of one of the UK's largest software companies said to me recently, in no uncertain terms, that he was fed up with being cross examined about his company by 'here today, gone tomorrow' bloggers.

Of course, many blogs are rubbish. But there is little doubt, in my mind, that blogs written by 'influencers' are now of great and ever growing importance. Clearly, I'd like to put Holway's HotViews in that category!

To back that up, read 75% of journalists use blogs as sources in StrategyEye yesterday which reported:

"75% of journalists say they read blogs with the aim of getting ideas for stories, according to a survey by Brodeur and MarketWire. The same percentage of journalists say they read blogs at least twice a week, according to the survey. 70% of those surveyed claim they read blogs every day, with 21% reading for more than an hour a day.
Close to 30% of journalists are also writing their own blogs, according to the survey. Journalists write blogs in order to gain visibility amongst readers who tend to find journalists via their own pages listed on search engines, the two firms claim."