It's a number I'd like to believe. Seventy percent of Fortune 500 companies will have corporate blogs by the end of 2006. That's what the press release put out by JupiterMedia's PR firm had to say. The release also said some 34 percent of large companies already have blogs.
This would be great news. Except that a wiki by the highly credible Ross Mayfield and Chris Anderson puts the corporate blog number at a mere 5.8 percent, which feels about right to those who spend a piece of their time evangelizing corporate blogging. One of them is Toby Bloomberg who called Peter Arnold Associates, JupiterMedia's PR Agency. She was told nicely that someone would check with the client and get back to her. Here's her first post on the story, citing the apparent discrepancy.
That's also where the story took a hairpin curve. On the callback, Toby was told they wouldn't give her anything else because her blog was a marketing blog closely associated her marketing consulting business. Other bloggers jumped into the fray including Fard Johnmar from Healthcare Vox who was told that if he wanted to know more he would have to buy the report. He coughed up $750 and got a four-page executive summary. However, to get it, he had to sign an NDA. So he can't publish the details. However, from his post, it is clear that he thinks the full report is thin porridge indeed.
I find this all pretty regrettable. Analysts had their reputations pretty badly tainted when the last bubble imploded and may have spent some years rebuilding their reputations. JupiterMedia has put its foot into a bucket on this one. Even if they can defend their questionable numbers, that still leaves them with having orchestrated some pretty questionable behavior.
Congrats to Toby, Fard and other bloggers who have dug into this story with hard-noses and level heads.
