I Love This! Validation is such an empowering thing. Having been arguing the power of blogs and social media for the last ~5 years I have loved watching things evolve.

• At first no one thought blogs would be taken seriously by businesses.
• Then no one thought they’d be used for anything other than marketing.
• Then journalists said they’d never replace.
• Then people said regulated industries (legal medical etc) would never be able to fully embrace blogs.

Are these people tired of being wrong yet?  Because I’m not tired of being right.

Today I was reading on The Next Web about Microsoft’s (disclosure: Microsoft is a client) latest legal happenings with the EU, when I reads this:
Microsoft withdraws from EU antitrust hearing. Claims it’s just not fair. - The Next Web

In a blog post on the company blog titled “Why hold a hearing in the EU if key decision makers are unable to attend?”, Microsoft explained its actions…

Did you catch that? Let me show it again: In a blog post. In a blog post!!!! Not “In a press release.” Love it.

In a blog post, on their Microsoft On The Issues blog, they talked about an ongoing legal case AND the post is open to comments. To Microsoft’s credit they have always been leaders in the blog space.  There are still very few companies that would be willing to do this, for now. But like all the barriers we’ve seen, that too will change.

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