Jonathan Schwartz, COO of Sun Microsystems, writing in this month’s issue of the Harvard Business Review, says in a short but succinct article that all businesses need blogs. But don’t click that link — it won’t be of any use to you unless you have a subscription!

Schwartz has some choice things to say: “If you’re not part of the conversation, others will speak on your behalf.” Or, “Be honest and open. Be respectful of your audience.” Or, “[What I write] can be read by anyone, anywhere in the world…. That may seem risky, but it’s riskier not to….”

Harvard Business Review, you ought to heed his advice and ditch the silly subscription idea!

But print-first media seem determined to make themselves irrelevant. The New York Times, the so-called Paper of Record, has effectively removed itself from any searches on the web for news for anything but the most recent news (e.g., the indictment of Lewis Libby Jr.). Try doing a search on “Hurricane Katrina” and you’ll find CNN, Yahoo News, the BBC, and even Wikipedia ahead of the New York Times (in fact, the Times doesn’t appear at all). That’s because after a short time they dump their stories in their pay-per-article area. I’m sure the Times makes some money on their buried articles, but in a few years, who will even pay attention? In the Internet era, they’re well on their to becoming the paper of no record.

The Times went even further by setting up a “new service” called TimesSelect which provides “exclusive online access to Op-Ed columnists” for less than 14 cents a day” (that’s “less than” $51.10 a year). Members of that club must be boasting about their exclusive status. I guess I won’t be reading Thomas Friedman much any more.

As Jonathan Schwartz says, “If you’re not part of the conversation, others will speak on your behalf.”

Posted by Antony in: Blogs, General