in Wired News: Flash: Blogging Goes Corporate. It’s a reasonably interesting article but it’s not without problems. The whole thing describing why they put the sites on third-party domains is just weird, and really undercuts the whole effort, in a way. The Wired News writer gives them a pass on this, and goes even further:
Hale added: “Would it have been a true blog if we put it on Macromedia.com? Not really.”
Indeed, it was important to Macromedia that its blogs seemed true, that readers perceived them as the thoughts of very helpful community managers instead of corporate shills. If the effort felt disingenuous, like the company was merely jumping on the blogwagon, it could have backfired.
Not putting the sites on Macromedia.com just underlines that they think of the site as a very limited (and unitary) thing, notwithstanding the hugeness of it. It’s weird for a company that’s supposed to be all about creativity to not be creative enough to envision a macromedia.com that was both credible and had small weblog-esque sections. More likely they’re hedging their bets, giving themselves the opportunity to pull the plug quietly later if needed.
Plus, I think it does reek of astroturfing. Putting a blog on Macromedia.com would have been big news. This isn’t corporate blogging. It’s not corporate blogging until they are open to the idea of mingling official corporate messages with more informal information all on one site.
