Scoble weighs in on the power of blogs
Steve Rubel's interview with Robert Scoble of Microsoft appears today. Here's my favorite thought from the interview:
Micro Persuasion
Do you think PR pros approach bloggers like yourself the same way they might approach a journalist? How should PR pros approach bloggers and what should they expect from their efforts to influence them?
SCOBLE: Some are now, but mostly they don't even know that we exist, and if they do know, they assume that because we have small audiences that we aren't powerful. For instance, I have only 4000 readers. Not powerful, right? Especially in a world of Dan Gillmors and Walt Mossbergs. But, the weblog world is distributed and efficient at passing information around.
What do I mean? Well, two weeks ago we launched Channel9 and already we've had several hundred thousand visits.
Buzz Bruggeman, who is CEO for ActiveWords, told me that he was written up in USA Today. Got a really great review. The kind that PR professionals kill for. And he got 40 downloads of his product. But when I linked to him he got several hundred downloads. Lesson? Don't underestimate the weblog world.