Comments on: Aggregator Blogs :: Any uses for this in the business world?

By: TaraSmith

TaraSmith — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 19:40:42 +0000

“We no longer have the latitude to miss something important in the blogosphere or in our competitor’s press releases.”
I think you misread my comment. I’m not questioning the value of tracking such information, I’m questionning whether it’s necessary to have 9-10 employees all spending time reading through the same info. It seems to me that it would be a more effective use of time to have 1-2 people actually analyze the information and present it to the rest for discussion. Hence my comments about in-house researchers.

By: Marcom Blog » Look in the Opposite Direction

Marcom Blog » Look in the Opposite Direction — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 17:40:58 +0000

[…] … Google is big - is there value in the opposite approach? Hint: Robert is already on that track as is SmartSpace(tm). Search engines find stuff that already exists - is there an […]

By: BillFrench

BillFrench — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 23:29:03 +0000

Even an aggregator blog that is limited to certain terms or writers could easily yield
dozens upon dozens of posts each day.
Or worse yet; miss a critical item. There are many devils in the details of building such a platform. This is why it’s important to think about Robert’s exceursion as simply that; a big toe in the water. There are hundreds of dimensions that have to be considered before declaring a product is born. But the excursion is likely to be rewarding.
At our company we have products that touch upon this area and we’ve spent a fair bit of energy hardening the process and tools that bring PR professionals important data on a timely basis. This is not easy to do because the user must also be able to tweak the configuration without a coder in the room. But we’re pretty close - our blogsites provide “inteligence channels” that are secure and visible only to “insiders” and authors. We also provide aggregation of other blogs (both visible and invisible). These kinds of capabilities make it easier for a PR person to focus on what’s relevant and thus shortening the thought-to-blog cycle.
While it would be nice to think employees have enough time to read through everything and brainstorm back and forth, I don’t know that this is realistic or even desirable.
Our customers would say - “we no longer have the latitude to miss something important in the blogosphere or in our competitor’s press releases.”.
It’s certainly desireable to have a PR team that is beter informed; even over informed. And if the desire is there, it’s probably a realistic goal. But to meet that goal you have to think about things like support for filter patterns so that RSS feeds are no longer static. Instead, they’re tuned to meet exactly the needs of the users.
Examples…
Although it’s unrealistic to expect every corporate blog post to be checked for vulgar or offensive terms, it’s not unrealistic to envision a smart blog-agent that does this for you. Imagine a report that comes to the chief PR officer every night detailing any corporate blog post that *may* be offensive or mention something inappropriate. Now imagine that agent looking at every blog, website, or article referenced by every blog post made by the company; checking for comments (creating guilt-by-association) that you may not want your business referencing in the same breath. We do this now. It’s not cheap, but it’s starting to become a requirement.
These are things that make seemingly unrealistic ideas both desireable and worth the effort because they make it possible (even with resource constrained teams) to do more with less time.

By: TaraSmith

TaraSmith — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 19:40:16 +0000

Companies could certainly use this sort of thing for tracking competitor news, industry trends, corporate coverage, etc. In fact, many PR agencies already offer services where they track news coverage and press releases via newsfeeds provided by folks like Factiva. Aggregator blogs seem like the next logical step.
The danger lies in the fact there is simply SO MUCH info out there. Even an aggregator blog that is limited to certain terms or writers could easily yield dozens upon dozens of posts each day. While it would be nice to think employees have enough time to read through everything and brainstorm back and forth, I don’t know that this is realistic or even desirable.
A more appealing option would be to have one or two people either in-house or at an agency (there is absolutely billable potential there) use the aggregator blog as a tool. They could comb through all of the information and provide an analysis of key points. I’ve seen a number of companies use an in-house researcher and/or PR agency this way (again, using tools like Factiva).
At Marqui, we’ve gone a little bit further in that we rely on a “conversation coordinator” that we’ve hired on a contract basis. She is something of a human “blog aggregator” in that she helps us stay on top of what everyone is saying about Marqui in the blogosphere.

By: Lindsay_J

Lindsay_J — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 02:33:29 +0000

We have heard so much on here about the importance of staying informed that I can’t imagine how helpful it would be if a company started up an internal aggregator blog like the one you were discussing. Employees should know what the competition is up to as well as other industry trends that an aggregator blog could report about, and the option of commenting would allow for intelligent and meaningful discussion. I think we’re on the way there. Have fun talking to the Birmingham people about blogs Robert!

By: Lara

Lara — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 03:05:09 +0000

I don’t really follow the entirety of your article, but I did want to comment on the part about the downside of these “new” blogs. I think, like you said, that competition would almost be a benefit to the people reading these blogs. As a student I have been taught to be skeptical about what I read on the Internet so I think the comparison aspect of competition would be beneficial. Transparency, haven’t we all agreed that that is a good thing. Don’t hide something, be open, be brash, confront the situation. I know that competition does have a negative side obviously there is a threat of losing traffic, but as a reader I think it could have a little positive plus to it. Just a thought, maybe I’ll understand the post a little better after spring break. Have a good one!