http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/167/business/Companies_get_into_weblog_act+.shtml
Companies get into weblog act - Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe

It was bound to happen: Corporate America has discovered the blog. The
proof was at hand during last week's ClickZ Weblog Business Strategies
2003 Conference & Expo. The sponsors had set aside a smallish conference
room at the Sheraton Boston, and ended up having to knock out the
collapsible rear wall and lug in more tables and chairs....

Companies have begun to
recognize the potential power of what buffs like to call ''the blog-
osphere.'' Consider: Every business needs to know what its employees
know. ......
Rock Regan, chief information officer of the state of Connecticut and a
guest at last week's conference, is deploying a weblog in his office to
get the techies talking. But he's trying to keep the conversation
focused.
...
Businesses are also looking at blogging to their customers. Companies
like the software maker Macromedia Inc. encourage employees to set up
public weblogs to provide information to users of the companies'
products. The travel website
biznettravel.com uses a blog to post links to the latest travel-related
news, complete with snarky commentary. It's a clever way to give
Internet companies a human face. But is it really blogging? Sure, the
corporate weblogs use the same technologies, but their hearts are not
really in it. The best blogs don't just deliver authoritative
information; they resonate with the personalities of their creators.
......
Still, there's no help for it. Just as e-mail, born as an academic
convenience, is now a marketing tool for human growth hormone, the blogs
are bound to go commercial. Who knows? Maybe a few will even get it
right. There are good TV commercials, after all.