Triumph of Blogs- Threat to companies

CNET News article declares that Apple lost the case in which it was trying to find the source of information leak about its unreleased product. According to this article, the court ruled in the favor of the blog site and provided it with the same protection as that enjoyed by journalists.

Interesting passages from the article:

"Apple "probably initiated the litigation to scare employees, to deter further leaking. As of today, that strategy has backfired badly." " 

"California's shield law, like many such laws in other states, was written long before the Internet became popular. It protects anyone currently or previously employed by "a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication, or by a press association or wire service." (The term "other periodical publication" was added in 1974.) The court said the intent of the legislature was to be generous with that definition–and concluded that "petitioners' Web sites are highly analogous to printed publications" and should enjoy the same legal protections against divulging their sources."

Rohit Aggarwal

Addition to blog fearing companies

This NewYork Times article discusses about the problem faced by an intern of Comedy Central. Following is a passage from that article:

"Viacom, the parent company of Comedy Central, now has an explicit policy. In a section on confidentiality, it states that the employee is "discouraged from publicly discussing work-related matters, whether constituting confidential information or not, outside of appropriate work channels, including online in chat rooms or 'blogs.' ""

Some other companies/organizations that have/had no blogging policies are:

1) Olympic Sports 2004

2) Apple Retail Division (blogs discuss this, but I could not find any confidentaility agreement of Apple Retail Division)

Please drop a line if you know any of such companies.

Following are some of the blogs/websites/wikis that discuss about the culture of corporate blogs:

• http://www.corporateblogging.info/
• http://www.thecorporatebloggingbook.com/corporate-blogging-resources/
• https://www.socialtext.net/bizblogs/index.cgi

Rohit Aggarwal

Advantages of Feedburner

Mr. Alex of Microsoft discuss about few advantages of forcing feedburner subscriber feed.

 Rohit Aggarwal

Secondlife is gaining popularity

A recent Business Week article raves about Secondlife. But I can see some serious psychological problems arising due to this. I guess people who are unhappy with their lives will start spending lot of time on it and eventually, the line between reality and virtual world will become blurr to them.

I saw some examples  on this. Good research topic for some one working in psychology field. Good luck!

Rohit Aggarwal