Blogging Ghosts

A PR and blogging discussion is full of PR pros eager for a new world where they ghostwrite corporate blogs. The idea makes me vaguely nauseous.
Blogging becomes a sub-discipline of speechwriting — execs and politicians hire wordsmiths, and celebrities hacks to answer fanmail and ghostwrite bios.
I’ve always been skeptical of the Romantic pose of the Cluetrain guys — blogging is the true, authentic voice, cutting through the phony, saccharine hype of marketingspeak.
But an outsourced PR blog is a corporate newsletter — it’s the pep-talk tone of the American Airlines letter from the CEO, multiplied by a million.
Then again, if it’s really boring, we don’t have to read it. In the world of blogging, the limit is the number of blogs a reader can scan in a day. If a CEO blog is interesting, it will get linked and found. And if the propaganda is BS, easier to link and puncture the bubble — viz the response to Movable Type’s new pricing.
With comments and trackback and Technorati and Feedster, there are more ways to find the real conversation.

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