Corporate Blogging at Occidental's SCCUR 2006

On November 18, 2006 approximately 750 participants from 70 colleges and universities participated in Occidental's 14th annual Southern California Conference for Undergraduate Research (SCCUR) -- http://sccur06.oxy.edu/index.shtml.

"Why is corporate blogging relevant to students?" was one of the entries selected for presentation.

My opening question to the audience was: "How many corporate blogs exist?"

Back in 2004, David Sifry -- Founder of Technorati -- indicated approximately 5000. Most corporate bloggers then were centered in software and media companies.

By 2006, reports by Anderson C. and Mayfield R. of the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki and Dowling G. and Daniels D. of Jupiter Research suggest the following:

• Approximately 35 percent of large companies plan to institute corporate weblogs in 2006
• More than 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies blog externally
• With 34 percent of corporations blogging, a 70 percent total is expected by the end of 2006.

The growth in corporate blogging is visible as the benefits of this corporate blogging tool are weighed and recognized as greater than the liabilities.

When I first started my Independent Study on Corporate Blogs in January 2006, no entries existed on the topic in the Wikipedia. It's exciting to see the sharing of information on the subject in this online encyclopedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog.

Although I've not posted any entries for some time on corporate blogging due to my USC courseload priorities, I will start and build momentum with the New Year.