Some businesses are not blogging fans

Blogging is starting to get noticed in the work place. For some, this is a good thing. For others, blogging leads to time wasting by employees and, worse yet, it leads to leaking sensitive information.

"Web logs are a terrific tool for companies to communicate," said Rebecca Blood, author of "The Weblog Handbook." But, she added, "people have a funny way of thinking about Weblogs. They think they should divulge everything. And that can cause problems."

Here lies the problem, according to an article originally appearing in the Chicago Tribune, but more easily found at the Billings Gazette. Are blogs nothing more than the equivalent of a daily diary containing personal and sensitive information? I guess that could be the case, but I seriously doubt that any business person who has found the value in blogging will look at it that way. There is no more danger in leaking sensitive company information in a blog then there is leaking information at a cocktail party. And consider this: you can edit a blog. You can't edit what you said last night after four martinis.

Christopher Wolf, a partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm Proskauer Rose, advises clients not to start blogs because of the perils: "People are just more casual in the stuff they put on the Internet. Recording one's thoughts can lead to problems for both the employer and the employee because it becomes readily available for all to see."

Blogs are a productivity and communication tool. I think perhaps Mr. Wolf just doesn't get it.

AOL adds telephone blogging

AOL recently added blogging as a service for its customers. It seems that AOL is not a company to sit by and congratulate itself on the move. AOL has announced that it is improving its "AOLbyPhone" service to include blogging by telephone. Basically, you can update "personal blogs via audio files left over the phone."

Telemarketers can dish it out, but can't take it

Dave Barry always has something amusing to say. I guess his columns are the closest thing to a blog that you can find in newsprint. Of course, since Dave is a computer-savvy writer, he also has an online blog utilizing Blogger and hosted on Blog*Spot.

In a recent column, Dave talked about telemarketers and their very annoying use of the First Amendment to claim a "right" to call and disturb your dinner. Dave suggested that perhaps his readers might want to all call the American Teleservices Association to see how they like getting unwanted calls. It seems that once Dave published the number, the ATA had to stop answering their phones because of the flood of calls. All callers could get was a recording that said that because of "overwhelming positive response to recent media events, we are unable to take your call at this time." Talk about putting a spin on the response from angry telemarketing victims. The executive director of the ATA actually had the nerve to complain that there "appeared to be some malice" in Dave's intent. Dave's response was: "They have phones like the rest of us have phones. Their attitude seems to be if you have a phone, people are allowed to call you."

Blogger drops Pro version

Google announced that Blogger Pro is being dropped as a separate product. Most of the features of Blogger Pro are going to be wrapped in regular Blogger which will remain a free product. As Blogger users know, the Pro version has been a $35 per year "extra" set of features.

Kind of a surprise to me. I wonder where Google, the new owner of Blogger, is going with this? I would have thought that Blogger might move in the direction of TypePad --charging a monthly fee. Evan Williams, a founder of Blogger, says "...we're excited about the many new things we have in the pipeline." This should get interesting as the strategy unfolds.

By the way, if you subscribed to Blogger Pro, your money will not be wasted. You should be receiving an email that entitles you to a free Blogger sweatshirt.