Fortune 500 business blogging update

Today Fortune released its latest Fortune 500 list, with 31 new companies including Google, Yahoo! and eBay. So it's time to update our Fortune 500 business blogging index, which is the wiki that Ross Mayfield and I set up last year.

So far, we've found just two of the new entries--Google and Yahoo!--with public bloggers, so that brings the total of companies that are blogging to 27 (5.4%) of the Fortune 500.

In the four months since we set up the site, the number of Fortune 500 companies with public blogs has increased 50%, from 18 to 27. That's a significant increase, but it's still not a lot in absolute terms. Why? Amazon's Werner Vogel and Microsoft's Robert Scoble (and co-author Shel Israel) have been having an entertaining debate over this very question. Worth a read.

Many thanks to Wired's Zach Silveira for the quick work in updating the wiki. Check it out!

UPDATE: Now, thanks to Socialtext's new "Miki" feature, it's also availble in a mobile-friendly format for all your on-the-road biz blogging needs.

Comments

[John Wagner]

Chris:

The bottom line is that many non-tech companies still see blogging as having more risk than reward.

We've seen some high profile instances where companies are publicly scrutinized for their blog efforts, such as Edelman and Wal-Mart. And we've watched as they've struggled to respond appropriately.

And outside of the tech world, we've yet to see an example where a blog really made a difference for a company, in part because so few people still read blogs.

I believe companies in many industries will sit this out until they see a real value in opening themselves up.

[Marko]

Wow. These are some huge numbers.

[Ziv Shteinberg]

Probably the less-appealing blog niche I can think of I'd actually like to thank corporate America for not putting up official corporate blogs.

Blogs are independent in nature, reflecting a personal opinion or experience. Public companies on the other hand are about image and public relations (i.e. smoke and mirrors). Let them keep their boring press releases. They do have a time stamp on those after all..

Love your work. Best Regards, ZS.
(visit my long tail movie experiment dvdideas.com)

[joe euteneuer]

Chris, I'm new to blogging and the apparent revolution that I'm witnessing, but I love your stuff. It's interesting, connected, and well written. keep it up.

[Smart]

I am smart auto posting. We are posting from auto machine.

[Britney]

Wow, only 5% of the fortune 500. It will be interesting to see where this is in a few years.. perhaps the web2.0 will fall and the fortune 500 will continue without blogging.. I know the oild companies are making plenty of money without blogs right now. Or maybe the web 2.0 bloggers will take a hold and never look back at the old 500 that noone remembers in a few years because there is no blog of it's existence ;)

[Derek]

Thanks for the great list! I look forward to seeing more Fortunate 500 companies blog in the future.

[Chester]

Good job thanks! Best wishes to owner of this site!

[Adam Trachtenberg]

You missed eBay. We have a few blogs. I update the Wiki to add them.

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[REBLogGirl]

I recently took a tour of the Fortune 500 blogosphere and boy was I disappointed. Not only were so few of them taking advantage of the medium but so many of those few are getting it wrong. Not impressed. I think there will be a big market for social media managers int he next few years.

[Jones]

By the way, I just came across this list. This is a very good list. Thanks for putting this together.