• by June 28, 2006

Yup, there are more corporate blogs on the way. I'm sure there are more personal ones on the way too. Wasn't there a statistic that said a new blog is born something like every minute?

At any rate, JupiterResearch finds that 35 percent of large companies plan to start corporate blogs this year. When combined with the existing deployed base of 34 percent, nearly 70 percent of all site operators will have implemented corporate blogs by the end of 2006. That's according to a new Jup report, "Corporate Weblogs: Deployment, Promotion, and Measurement," that also finds 64 percent of executives spend less than $500,000 to deploy and manage corporate Weblogs.

"Site operators should leverage existing Web content management best practices and functionality to decrease total cost of ownership, promote unified branding and increase site security," said Greg Dowling, a JupiterResearch analyst and author of the report, in a statement. "They can also realize considerable cost savings while mitigating deployment, management and maintenance concerns inherent in implementing additional stand-alone Weblog authoring systems."

Dowling's report finds that blogs are underutilized for generating word-of-mouth marketing opportunities. Only 32 percent of marketing executives indicated they use corporate blogs to generate WoM around their company's products or services.

"By engaging prospective customers in active dialogue, companies can showcase their expertise and domain knowledge, creating a forum for communication of their strategies and visions," said David Schatsky, president of JupiterKagan, in a statement. "In doing so, companies can generate buzz around their products or services, while eliciting feedback and collaboration from product evangelists."

That kind of makes sense, don't you think?