Steve Jobs should be a blogger

Many Fortune 500 companies have embraced blogging. GM, Oracle, and Microsoft are just a few of the companies that have realized the power of communicating with their customers and their employees via blogs. I can't think of a better example of corporate blogging than Robert Scoble, a well known blogger and Microsoft employee.

I may not always agree with Robert, but I always read his blog (and not just because he reads my personal blog; that does help though). Where is Apple in the blogosphere?

There are heaps of third party bloggers covering every move that the company makes (Laurie, C.K. and myself are great examples of this), however there has been nary an official peep out of Apple about blogging, which I find odd.

Odd, Scott? Don't you know that Apple is notorious for its secrecy...

Why, yes, yes I do, however Apple has shown that it is embracing blogging in various ways. Tiger server includes a built in blogging solution so that you can run a blogging service right out of the box, as did Panther server. Apple started a Student blog to talk about college and Apple products. Safari RSS has one new big ticket feature; reading RSS feeds (the life blood of many blogs). Finally, Dave Hyatt, a fairly high profile Apple employee, runs a popular blog devoted (in part) to the development process of Safari.

Apple should encourage more of their key players responsible for strategic technologies to start their own blogs now, and on a server run by Apple. Where is the Frank Casanova blog about Quicktime and all the cool things you can do in QT 7? How about Sal Soghoian posting about all the time saving things that Applescript can do? Why isn't the Tiger product manager keeping a blog listing all the cool new features of Tiger and why you should be spending your hard earned cash on it? Why is 'The Blog of Steve' where we Mac addicts can bask in the glow and glory that is his Steveness only a figment of my imagination?

Ok, that last one probably won't ever happen, but why is Apple keeping all of this great knowledge to themselves? If you want to whip the public up into a frenzy give them what they crave, information that is updated frequently and doesn't come in the form of a knowledge base. The best part is that you can focus solely on products that are freely available now, no need to divulge trade secrets in order to get an audience (we all know how well that works).

Now, I don't know if Apple is using blogs internally since I don't know anyone who works for Apple, though it would make sense that they would be using the blogging features built right into Tiger server (what with eating your own dog food and all that rot) to communicate with their employees.

Apple, you're the hottest company in the tech sector at the moment. You need to parlay that standing into something lasting, and blogs can be yet another weapon in your PR arsenal. And if you're looking for a smart, funny, pithy writer to help you get this off the ground I think I know the perfect guy for the job (and I'm not thinking of C.K).