AOL's Stock Blogs Will Get More Companies Blogging

Whether intended or not, AOL's big move today in launching Blogging Stocks will get more corporations using blogs as a communications tool - perhaps reluctantly. AOL, under the lead of new employee Jason Calacanis and Weblogs Inc., launched blogs tracking Google, Microsoft, General Electric, Wal-Mart, Apple, eBay, Time Warner and Yahoo.

With this launch, many more employees inside some of the biggest corporations in the world will have a big incentive to start reading blogs. In addition, so will investor relations professionals, analysts, press and any other stragglers. Suddenly blogs aren't just a sideshow, but a major influence that can impact companies positively and negatively where it matters most - shareholder value.

Blogging Stocks and Google Finance, which lists blog posts, bring weblogs out of its perceived geekdom and puts them into the forefront. Blogs now have more power to change the game in  the stock market, a scorecard that many of us follow.

All of the stocks that AOL is tracking so far are very blog savvy. All eight firms have at least one blog. Three of them - Microsoft, GE and Wal-Mart - are Edelman clients. As AOL builds out this network it will start covering companies that do not have blogs. Once they do, they will start reading and over time realize they need to get into the conversation actively.

Calacanis and AOL would be wise to be launch more blogs and/or networks that track major companies. Once major marketers feel the power of such blogs there will be little reason not to advertise on them. Just like the trade rags once did. Influence brings ad dollars.

Technorati Tags: AOL, Blogging Stocks, IR, Investor Relations, Stocks

Comments

[Marshall Kirkpatrick]

I can't believe no one else has commented on this post. It's a very interesting point and you may well be right. I guess we'll just see what it means for companies to blog reluctantly. Is it better to not blog at all? Or does that mean upper management begrudgingly hires some one below them to run the blog. Sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen. Funny.

[Dominic Jones]

It certainly thrusts stock blogs to the forefront, but I'm not sure how much influence the AOL blogs will have. It depends on how good they are at bringing valuable perspective. Much of the best expertise is still locked up behind firewalls.

Investors typically won't bother with anything that doesn't add something new or valuable. And investor relations departments won't bother with anything that doesn't have influence with investors. AOL is not an institutional investor resource, and IR departments typically don't pay attention to retail investors.

So the jury is still out on how much influence blogs will have, they will have some influence at least. They already are through Google Finance.

I'm interested to see who moves next. Yahoo! Google? And do you build out like AOL or do you tap into what's already happening in networks like Seeking Alpha?

Really interesting developments.

[Jason]

Quick note: These are Weblogs, Inc. bloggers... not AOL staffers on bloggingstocks.com. So, you can be sure they are going to bring a fresh perspective.

It's amazing that AOL is putting bloggers on their HOMEPAGE and on their quote pages... in fact, AOL is putting bloggers all of our services. think about how huge that is for a second... bloggers next to the WSJ, TheStreet.com, etc. on AOL Finance.

I think I'm gonna cry... :-)

[Eric Frenchman]

Hate to disagree but this is not a new idea. It has been done before - try RealMoney.com. Don't you consider Cramer and the rest of the Realmoney writers original Wall Street bloggers? This is not a bad idea, just won't be a major event in the finance market. The best this could hope for would be to be another piece of information that investors may use to make decisions - perhaps a little better version then Yahoo's Message Boards.

[Michael Sommermeyer]

All I see this doing is leading to a bunch of disclosure statements. For instance, if you reply to a posting are you going to have to meet SEC requirements by posting your company affiliation, or indicate you own stock, or paste a long legal statement on the bottom of your reply? It might lead to more transparency or a lot of endless crap being added to blog posts. Plus there will be the temptation for companies to attempt to defend themselves (read WalMart) and end up further fueling the debate. I'm just not sure this will really improve corporate blogging, but it might create more blog-pulse jobs as companies monitor the posts.

[Jason]

Eric: There are no new ideas.. everything is built off what has come before it.

[Easton Ellsworth]

What an interesting conversation here. I agree with Steve. AOL's BloggingStocks may well generate more influence in terms of the buzz surrounding its debut than in terms of its actual post content. But as long as the bloggers post insightfully and can guide people to a greater understanding of what these companies are up to, I think BloggingStocks is poised to become another central hub for corporate bloggers and those who follow them - on the order of Blogspotting or AllBusiness.

[lisamopett]

AOL's Blogging stocks may helpfull to guide people while knowing about stocks.

regards,
Online stock market trading

[mrmike]

I do see this as another form of media in which to spread each companies message. I can't see insiders posting on blogs though. This would lead to problems of disclosure. With the site up and running a few months, I see they really cater to the novice. Realmoney is much more focused on investing and online stock trading. They should really have named their site, blogging-public-companies.com.
That's not as catchy as blogging-stocks though.
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