What is a blog? How would you define an industry analyst blog? What separates blogs from the other online destinations and channels published by the ICT analyst community? Is a blog still a blog without an RSS feed? comments? Is an analyst blog tied to his or her expertise? Yesterday, I asked ten or so analysts and consultants in the US and UK to share their thoughts on what is a blog. They responded with free-range thinking on that and beyond: what is an analyst blog, why do analysts blog, and why does anyone care. Good stuff. Here’s a rough cut of my notes.

Background

My intent is to overhaul the criteria for the Tekrati analyst blogs directory. Already, the conversation offers a rich perspective on grounds for deciding which blogs are listed and why they might be tossed out down the road.

I queried analysts and consultants that are successful bloggers: each has a track record as an individual blogger, and has earned credibility as a thought leader within a professional community of practice.

The analysts are: Carl Howe of Blackfriars Communications, Mike Gotta of Burton Group, Alan Pelz-Sharpe of CMS Watch, Charlene Li or Josh Bernoff (Josh responded) of Forrester Research, Dale Vile of Freeform Dynamics, James Governor of RedMonk, John Blossom of Shore Communications, and Stowe Boyd of The Brannan Street Irregulars.

The consultants are: Jen McClure of the Society for New Communications Research, Jonny Bentwood of Edelman, and Erik SR of Tech for PR.

Again, what follows is a rough cut of the discussion threads. I’m pulling excerpts out of the conversational flow, to make for faster reading. More, and perhaps a little more polished, next week.

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The Tekrati directory of analyst blogs is easier to use, offers more information and is better integrated with its sister directories, on analysts and analyst firms. What’s more, we migrated the OPML to the latest rev and did an extensive housecleaning on the listings. Richard handled the programming effortlessly, as always. I, on the other hand, am still wrestling with a content issue: new rules for separating a blog from any other form of online journal or commentary. I’m asking for help.

You might be thinking that I’m a little slow on the draw, given that I’m just now pondering the universal truths of Blog, some two and half years into publishing a directory of blogs.

Since the 2005 directory debut, my rule has been this: there must be evidence of blog publishing software and/or blog coding and format standards. That’s what split the blogwashers — my term for analysts using web pages that mimic a blog in a cosmetic way — from the bloggers. Only the bloggers that passed this test made it into the directory.

Fast forward to 2007. I’m feeling increasingly self-conscious about this technology-only premise, and that’s not a good thing. More web content seems to be a hybrid, a blend of blog and other content publishing applications. This results in too much dithering on my part. And, I don’t like to guess. Whether a blog is in or out of the directory should be a simple decision. It should not be subjective. (Other elements are subjective, as it is, like who is and who is not an analyst. That’s another conversation.)

What to do? I don’t think that adding more technology to my filtering criteria is the right approach. After all, any kind of page can be turned into an RSS feed, lots of publishing systems allow reader comments, lots of blog templates perform like traditional websites, and lots of analyst blogs don’t accept comments or have feeds that don’t validate.

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A few readers have asked me what the IT analysts are saying about the Long Tail. After failing to convince them that the long tail is (a) anything written by Thomas Hardy or (b) an equally obscure pun involving a parrot, it occurred to me that the most appropriate answer to their questions could be found in analyst blogs. And, I happen to have addresses for a few of those.

Here’s a very small start on what analysts have been saying about the long tail. I’ll update periodically through the end of the year. You’re welcome to add, comment.

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As professional opinion leaders and market experts, industry analysts face three key challenges as bloggers: credibility, relevance and passion. Tekrati explores these challenges and how different analyst groups address them, as we continue this special report on industry analyst blogs. Related stories offer in-depth comments from selected analysts, and a reading list that links directly to analyst commentary on blogs and RSS.
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Five industry analysts speak candidly about their blogs — past, present and future — in this supplement to Tekrati’s Special Report: The State of Analyst Weblogs.

Why did you start your blog?

Carl Howe, Blackfriars blog: We started our blog because we were commenting on interesting articles and data verbally with our clients, but had no venue to pass on those insights to our broader Internet audience other than a two-page opinion piece. Further, we wanted a way for visitors to our Web site to provide comments and suggestions to us without necessarily sending us email. A blog felt like the ideal solution.

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