It’s interesting to see the rise of corporate blogs, particularly in the IT sector. As a way for companies to get employees talking directly to customers (though not necessarily vice-versa) they seem to be a useful tool. Not to mention going some way to humanising the drones sitting in their hutches within the monolithic evil corporate empire.

Microsoft has a whole bunch of blogs happening, varying from technical to personal and a fair mix in between.

Sun has also jumped on the bandwagon, as has IBM and Borland.

Google has an official blog, a joint effort from various company people, which is the most corporate-like of them all. (Perhaps a tad ironic, since they own Blogger and have a reputation for fostering employee creativity.)

So what’s the real difference between personal and corporate blogs? Well Mark Pilgrim (who has his own blog and an IBM one) reckons a corporate blog is just like a personal blog, except you don’t get to use the word “motherfucker.”