General Motors started a blog yesterday, with the first posts by GM Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz:
The FastLane blog is your source for the latest, greatest musings of GM leaders on topics relevant to the company, the industry and the global economy, and -- most of all -- to our customers and other car enthusiasts. We look forward to an open exchange of viewpoints and welcome your ideas and feedback throughout 2005.
This is the first 'mainstream' Fortune 100 company (as opposed to technology-related) to venture into the blogosphere with an executive leadership blog. A tremendous step.
All the elements you'd expect to see in a blog are present - comments, trackbacks and RSS feed.
Welcome, GM!
Note the interesting URL: it says "gmblogs" - note the plural. More such GM blogs coming?
(News via Micro Persuasion)
I find it amazingly interesting how much effort the major companies put into web publishing these days..
Posted by: freddie | 07 January 2005 at 15:21
Nev,
GM actually started blogging some time ago with the "Small Block Blog" - http://smallblock.gmblogs.com/
Their archives there date back to Oct, '04.
Posted by: Dana VanDen Heuvel | 09 January 2005 at 15:49
You're right Dana - this is not the first GM blog. That distinction belongs to the Small Block Blog, exactly as you say.
But The Fastlane Blog is the first executive blog, with postings by CEO-level people.
I took another look at that first blog you mention; neat description:
"The first GM blog is Smallblock.gmblogs.com, published to celebrate the 50th birthday of the Chevrolet small-block engine. Its content is written by GM Communications and by readers."
I've seen comment on some other blogs speculating that the new exec blog is ghost-written by the PR folk. Is it? I have no idea. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I'd prefer to believe it's not as there is no clear statement of authorship in this regard as there is with the engine blog.
Posted by: Neville Hobson | 09 January 2005 at 16:14