Martha Graybow, writing for Reuters, on As Blogging Grows, Companies Eye Legal Pitfalls:
As Corporate America wades into the burgeoning world of Internet Weblogs, companies are being warned they could face legal hazards when employees are let loose in the free-wheeling blogosphere.
Blogs, online journals that are proliferating on the Web, are attracting attention from big businesses looking for new ways to connect with customers. Sun Microsystems Inc., Microsoft Corp. and General Motors Corp all have officially sanctioned corporate blogs for employees to write about products and strategy.
But lawyers see possible legal pitfalls for companies looking to join the blogging phenomenon. What, for instance, would happen if someone at a publicly traded company unwittingly divulged confidential financial information or a trademark secret on one of these Web diaries?
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Lisa Vaas, writing for eWeek.com, on What Blogs, Podcasts, Feeds Mean to Bottom Line
The average consumer of blogs, RSS/XML feeds and Podcasts is male, earns big bucks and, in the case of Podcasts, is a youngster—all good to know if your company is thinking about jumping into the blogosphere, according to new research from Jupiter Research.
That’s an elite group to market to, but it’s a tiny group. In a June survey of some 4,000 Internet users, Jupiter found that over the past year, only 11 percent had read a blog monthly or more frequently. While that’s a small percentage, it does show healthy growth; in 2004, for example, only 6 percent of those surveyed regularly read blogs.
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