Blogs to replace White Papers?

Blogs are bringing about changes in the way we live, the way we buy, the way we interact; giving a chance to speak and be heard to millions who would not otherwise bother giving their opinion in mainstream media. The highly interactive medium of blogs has altered the way information is spread.

The audience for blogs and white papers is similar, although bloggers spend more time online, are younger, more tech savvy, educated, earning high incomes and having broadband connections.

Blogs are sprouting everywhere it seems. It is estimated that over 12 million Americans have their own blogs. The total number of blogs in the US doubles every five months with 700,000 being created every single day, of which 76,000 shut down due to lack of traffic.

At the recent Chicago DM Days & Expo '’06 organized by the Chicago Association of Direct Market, Dana VanDen Heuvel, director of RSS and Blog advertising at Pheedo explained,
“RSS is the new e-mail, blogs are the new whitepapers and podcasting is the new webinar. [Anywhere] from 10-30% of Internet users are using blogs”. Forrester Research'’s estimate of 10% is the most conservative, EMarketer thinks it'’s 14%, Pew 25%, Princeton Survey 27% and comScore Networks 30%.

Blogs are making a significant dent as consumers are becoming highly skeptical to mainstream advertising and are increasingly resisting advertising to gain control of decisions. Media sources are also becoming fragmented and targeting the right customer is becoming crucial. The underlying force is that consumers are demanding higher accountability.


This is a short version of my post on desicritics.org

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thanks for the kind mention Shalini! I think blogs are a great tool to supplement whitepapers. While they may not have the "pass around" capability of a graet whitepaper, they are often designed as thought leadership pieces, which make that a much more frequently updated version of what a great whitepaper can be.

Cheers,
Dana
Shalini said…
Dana, it’s great to have you on my blog. It’s exactly this kind of interaction, connectivity and accessibility that makes blogs score over white papers. Blogs increase your audience and give access to an incredibly wide base, becoming a powerful tool to direct traffic to white papers. I absolutely agree with you that blogs provide a superb and essential support system to whitepapers.
Anonymous said…
certainly :D

btw nice blog u got up here :)
Shalini said…
Thank you Harry! Nice to have a visitor from my home town.

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