That’s basically the question I was asked yesterday during a presentation to the executive staff of a division of a major ag company. They appear to be very frustrated getting information on their traditional website in a timely manner since it has to go through the “technical” folks who are always very “busy.”

I told them that although the answer is yes, since a blog is a website, they might want to consider a marriage of the two styles. They could for example make their blog the home page and have links to pages of static information that’s necessary, like contacts, products, ordering. The blog itself could be their constantly updated place to put the information they’re frustrated about.

They have researchers and field staff who have projects, thoughts and opinions that they want customers to know about. By setting the blog up properly they could actually all post to it. I think 4 of the 6 people attending had Blackberry’s. I told them they could actually email their post to their website from their little pda/phone and that got them even more interested!

They might even consider a blog of blogs. Meaning a blog page that links to blogs on separate topics like those of each division.

They were worried about letting just anyone post comments because of the fear of negative comments. However, as their communications director pointed out, they want honest feedback and if someone posts a “stupid” negative comment others will see it for what it is.

I cautioned them against restricting people from commenting since it seems like they might then run the danger of being seen as only an updated “commercial.”

All of this started from a discussion of the traditional news release and taking them a step further by turning them into Talking News Releases. With the audio we produce they could then post full interviews on different subjects on their website or blog. That’s when they asked “What’s a blog?” And then we were really off to the races.

We even got into podcasting for those of you who are really enlightened. I’ll be writing more about this new form of audio distribution soon so stay tuned.