BT joins the blogosphere

BT is planning to launch its own blog, following rivals Carphone Warehouse and Skype into the corporate blogosphere. 

John Petter, chief operating officer at BT Retail, plans to start blogging in the next few weeks. In an interview in the Financial Times, Petter describes the blog as a way to reach PR-fatigued customers. 

"They are suspicious of 'corporate speak' and they want it straight from the horse's mouth," he said. "Especially in a big company, they want to know that someone is taking responsibility."

Petter insists that his blog will be authentically personal, and not just press releases in disguise. "If it reads like something that had a whole department manufacturing it then it simply won't work," he said.

The BT blog is just the latest to spring up in the telecoms sector. VoIP company Skype added a UK blog to its online arsenal last week, and Carphone Warehouse chief executive Charles Dunstone started his blog in April.

Dunstone set up his blog to promote the company's 'free broadband' Talk3 package. His posts have documented the struggle to handle unprecedented interested in the new product, and include the odd dig at "grumbling" BT. 

But while companies are embracing blogs as a public-friendly marketing tool, the FT warns that corporate bloggers could be indulging in "a risky strategy" especially if employees and customers are allowed to publish uncensored posts and comments.

US car-maker General Motors set up a blog in March 2006 and invited users of its website to produce 30-second video adverts for its new Chevy Tahoe SUV. The result was thousands of videos attacking SUVs for harming the environment.

• vnunet.com blogs

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