Goggle listed a story about its own earnings at the No. 4 spot: "Google Q4 2005 Earnings Conference Call Transcript (GOOG)." This story is posted on The Internet Stock Blog, and here’s the fun part: the lead story today on The Internet Stock Blog was "Yahoo’s a Better Deal than Google." This story didn’t show up in the first three pages of my Google Blog search (which is as far as time permitted for me to look). Not that Google would filter out news more favorable to its main competitor, but it does add to the fun that the majority of Google Blog listings in the first two pages are from… guess who… the Internet Stock Blog. Obviously these folks know how to get a high page rank on a Google Blog search. But not when they write about Yahoo. If someone does a search on Yahoo, let me know if the tables are turned!

Beyond Steve O’Keefe’s post, you have to get down to No. 18 in my Google search to find a blog post that actually discusses IR and blogging. On his blog "Portals and KM" ("Knowledge Management" for those who let their subscription to "Information Week" lapse) Bill Ives posted this article: "Investor Relations and Blogging – Ross Dawson." 

Ives gives kudos to IBM for its use of RSS and podcasts in its investor relations and points to his article IBM’s Social Software Initiatives: Blogs, Wikis, Tagging, and More as "another example of the creativity that IBM is applying to these new tools."

It’s worth following the link to the longer Dawson article, which appeared on his "Trends in the Living Networks by Ross Dawson." A "business futurist" and author, Dawson writes:

"Blogging is a fabulous tool for giving greater visibility to the governance process, and providing investors with a chance to provide their input and perspectives. Certainly the traditional annual meeting is completely ineffective as a system for getting investor participation and involvement. One of the initial objections you often get on implementing blogging on investor relations issues concerns regulations on corporate disclosure, such as Regulation FD (meaning Fair Disclosure. Regulation FD was established largely to stop large investors getting preferential access to information). Given that RSS feeds allow everyone to get immediate notification of anything released on a blog, blogging in fact provides far more egalitarian information flows than other forms of release."

Dawson concludes with the hopeful prediction: "I believe that in just the next twelve months, blogging for investor relations purposes will become commonplace. The difference between those boards that really do believe in communicating with their investors, and those that prefer to avoid any interference by pesky shareholders, will swiftly become evident."

My guess is it will take longer than 12 months for IR to get comfortable with blogging—if a highly regulated (read "controlled") activity can ever fully embrace the uncontrolled blog environment. RSS and podcasting, however could be another story. I’ll be interested to learn what the folks at NIRI think on Thursday evening. IR presents some unique and interesting challenges to online communicators. Who wants to volunteer to host a blog week here at IAOC on the topic?

Don Dunnington