Editor's Notes

By Bob Bouyea

I admit I am not a blogger. I have never blogged, and I do not understand the attraction of the blog. I have read a few blogs to try and understand what people get out of it.

Blogging became the rage during the last election. But those political sites didn’t, and still don’t, interest me. They seem to be a place where the like-minded gather, albeit remotely, to find support for their particular political slant. It is like political talk TV, only online.

Other bloggers write about their personal lives. You know, the exciting stuff, like what they ate for Mother’s Day, the new puppy or the experience of raising children. Now those are things I want to read.

Snore.

Actually, this is a little too close to voyeurism for me. It reminds me of the time I broke into my sister’s diary. After finding it, I thought I was going to discover something good, only to find pages of blather.

But here you have perfect strangers lurking around the Internet, wanting to read about the details of your life. Why? Are people that bored? Do they have that much time on their hands?

Even other bloggers simply want to complain about their bosses, their co-workers, their working conditions, their spouses, their in-laws, the weather, their teams, etc. You name it, and someone is complaining about it online.

Geez, get a life, or get the nerve to complain to the person or people who can do something about the problem, whatever it is.

So far, there is nothing out there for me. But to be fair, I am not one to sit in front of the computer when I get home. Don’t really have the time, not to mention the desire.

But there must be something to them, considering there are roughly 9 million blogs with an estimated 40,000 new blogs created each day, according to a recent BusinessWeek article.

Finally, I found an article discussing a useful purpose for blogs—marketing. Yes, companies are devising “blog strategies.” One of the leaders in this marketing area, according to the article, is none other than General Motors. Its vice chairman, Bob Lutz, writes FastLane blog.

Here he talks about the company’s products in a personal way and allows consumers to comment, some of which, both the good and the bad, are posted as well.

So basically, the blog is used as a proactive but yet passive (considering the bloggers have to find you) way to promote and, at times, defend your products.

Sounds like something that would be good for your business, but don’t know where or how to start? From this question, a whole new industry is on the rise—blog consulting.

But there is more to it than knowing what to say, according to one expert. You first have to find out what bloggers are saying about your company, find out who is the most influential blogger and then figure out how to respond to them.

That seems like a whole lot of work, but the advantage is that you may get a good picture of what people think about your company and, therefore, be able to address any concerns or squash any rumors as they arrive. Think of them as focus groups that can be monitored minute-by-minute.

Just when I was going to say something nice.

There I was sitting down to write my column and thinking about the film incentive bill that Gov. Mark Sanford had recently signed and how cool it would be if more filmmakers start coming to Charleston and South Carolina to shoot movies. That happy thought would not have been possible had the governor and the Legislature not seen fit to increase an incentive package designed to draw production companies to the state.

There I was about to write something nice when my phone rang. On the other end of the line was Gov. Sanford’s press secretary Chris Drummond, who proceeded to chide me about wanting long lines at the DMV.

After a minute of thinking who is this guy and what is he talking about, I realized he was taking umbrage with a column I wrote a couple of issues ago. In it, I quipped how a press release from the governor’s office threatening the return of long lines at the DMV, if his version of the budget isn’t passed, had made me chuckle.

In jest, I questioned where the governor goes if he thinks there aren’t long lines at the DMV? It is not uncommon to have waits of up to three hours at some offices in our area. Now, granted, not all offices you encounter have a wait of a couple of hours or longer, but there are bound to be lines where there are roughly 1,000 people moving into the area each month.

Drummond extolled the accomplishments of the administration in reducing the time people spend at the DMV. It used to be an all day affair, he told me.

If so, then I applaud this administration for reducing the wait to only three hours. That’s plenty of time to create your own blog.

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