a lovely posting (from: amywohl News)
http://patrickweb.com/weblog/categories/ondemand/operating_systems.html
Reading Blogs
My friend John Patrick has written a lovely posting. It’s really in answer to one of Jonathan Sxhwartz’s blogs, but it’s a great explanation about operating systems and how the computer software market works. He also comments on Jonthan’s blog.
That’s my cue to comment, too. Jonathan Schwartz’s blog is rarely boring. However, he is fond of making it lively by commenting not just on what his own company is doing but also by telling the CEO’s of other companies, notably IBM, what they should do. I would imagine, he does this with the certainty that IBM is unlikely to reply. Coming from an older day, when companiies advised their maarketing staff to sell their own products and not to comment negatively on the competition, I must say I find it distasteful when he chooses to take his competition to task in that manner. On the other hand, one can always count on him for a lively read. And he does sprerad the joy around. More recently, he took Microsoft to task for its sponsored white paper on how Open Source is less secure than Windows.
Blogs that are fun to read say what they mean and are straight-forward about it. It’s that underlying straight-forward passion that makes you feel that you are having a personal converation with the author. No doubt that’s why I mainly read either technology blogs — very little fooling around with the truth there — or hobbyists’ blogs — pure passion about something (food, travel, books, music, you name it). I don’t mind reading something negative; I just want it to be said in a very plain way, so I can agree or disagree and then move on.
John Patrick wonders (in the blog I’ve linked to above) whether Jonathan writes his own blog. (It’s a reasonable question given that he’s also the COO of a fairly large company.) I’d guess he does. He’s certainly an articulate speaker and his blog is written very much in his own “voice..” I’m not sure I’d approve of a company having a blog ghostwritten.
On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with paying an accomplished blogger to write a blog for a company under his or her own name. There are quite a few of those now, generally not written as marketing exercises, but rather as interesting essays on subjects related to the company’s business. Stay tuned and I’ll be telling you about some things I’m doing in that space very soon.