NY Times Writer Astounded That Blogs Work for Corporate Marketing

While I'm delighted to see that mainstream media is covering blogging, they still have a "gee whiz" attitude about blogging as a source of income or a marketing tool. And, because they seem not to be knowledgeable about the role of blogs in corporate marketing or the role of advertising in blogs, they make factual mistakes in their articles.

For example, Louise Story at the New York Times notes that some bloggers are beginning to make money from their blogs. But she leaves out influential blogs that have long been completely ad supported, like Adrants, MarketingVox, BoingBoing, and scores of others that are part of blog ad networks.

Her article incorrectly notes "Audi, for example, paid for about 70 million ads about its A3 compact model on 286 Web logs in the spring." Actually, Audi paid for 70 million impressions, not 70 million ads.

Don't they have fact checkers at the New York Times anymore?

Fact-checking? What a concept! Like a lot of big companies (PR agencies of 15+ people ;) ) and institutions (traditional national media), there's a lag time in understanding new technologies. Most people just don't understand blogs.
That's why people like you -- who promote the use of blogs as a corp tool -- and others need to continue the effort to educate the public and include blogs as any other communications tool. Granted, unlike, say advertising, you can do a whole lot more with blogs.
Mike