Jeremy, over at one of the very best non-official blogs, is noting the challenges of corporate blogging which has been exploding thanks in no small part to the blog evangelizing efforts of another great non-official blogger Robert Scoble.
This reminded me of a nice talk I had with Google’s Adam at Pubcon where I was telling him that I’d rather read his own personal blog where he often has very thoughtful posts, or read Matt Cutts, than read the Google company line at the corporate blog.
Ideally I’d like to see Adam talk about Google stuff from his own perspective, as Jeremy has done so effectively over the years at Yahoo and Matt sometimes does at his blog. Corporate suits should take note of the amazing reservoir of credibility Jeremy, and a handful of other unofficial folks, have created with their frank, honest and introspective styles.
I’m still pretty much a corporate blog bigot, feeling that a large company blogs generally suffer from the items Jeremy notes PLUS the fact that usually it is very low level folks in charge of the blog and they simply can’t afford to rock the boat.
A notable exception is Bob Parsons over at Godaddy. I suppose his blog might be considered personal more than corporate, but this is my point. He’s wonderfully honest and insightful discussing Godaddy because nobody can kick his ass. He can write about the man without fear because he IS the man. His series about strategizing and running 2005 Superbowl TV ads was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever read about big ticket advertising.
So I’ll take Jeremy and Adam’s advice and check out the corporate blogs again, but I’m guessing I won’t be reading the man when I can read the guy who is at least willing to stick it to the man.
Joe Duck 
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You raise a number of interesting points, and I, too, notice vast differences in the tone and content of various corporate blogs.
With regards to blogging about Google on my own blog… well, it’s been a tough decision for me. As you might imagine, my time at Google has been fascinating, challenging, sometimes frustrating, most often rewarding. I could tell so many stories!
But here’s why, at least as of yet, I do not do so:
– I want to respect the privacy and also feelings of my colleagues.
– If I post on search / Webmaster stuff, my blog will radically be transformed from a place that my friends and family and genial acquaintances on the Web visit to a place that gets inundated with questions, complaints, and so on by a zillion Webmasters and Google users. For both better and worse, Google as a company, a brand, a set of products and services brings out STRONG opinions! I spend many, many hours a day on my computer. The last thing I want to do is feel obligated to tackle work stuff in my limited free time. I want to go to the gym, meet up with friends, go dancing, hiking, etc.
– I’ve even shied away from posting strong or controversial opinions on my blog lately because I’m well aware that such comments get spirited around the blogosphere as “GOOGLER Adam Lasnik says…” or, worse yet, “Google feels that…”
I love Google, I love working at Google, and at the same time, I am determined to also have an identity apart from Google. My blog, at least thus far, is part of that identity apart :).
With that said, I also agree that it’s a shame in a way. Before I got to Google, I *WANTED* to know what Google was like… the culture, the workload, everything. And now I feel almost a responsibility to share what I know with others. But the interests in privacy and my free time and such have so far outweighed my “sharing” conscience.
Thanks for the very thoughtful comment Adam.
Still, I know I’m speaking for a lot of us out here who would really enjoy hearing insider stuff.
In fact I was just chatting about this with ummm, Mark Jen down there at a Mashup Camp event and, ummm, he seemed pretty happy …. : )