I’ve just finished the Bloggerstudy which is being conducted by Technorati and Edelman. As record of my activities, I will keep the answers to a few questions on which I was allowed to enter my thoughts. I found this already two days ago on Sifry’s Alerts but simply haven’t had the time to survey myself!

• What can companies/organizations and their PR representatives do to better communicate with you?
  Companies should consider me as an individual and my writings as more than the evil „yadda yadda“. To create honest replies to my thoughts is imperative, and people like Technorati (David Sifry), IceRocket (Blake Rhodes) and even CNET (John Roberts) represent their company quite well and are able to interact with customers. Perhaps that’s based on the fact that they’re more deeply involved into „tech business“ and „blog business“ than other companies.
  
  
• What are some of your current frustrations with companies interacting with the blogosphere?
  Many companies rather ignore that people like you and me can publicize our thoughts freely. If they are unable to interact with me, they create more damage than they’d expect. Either the blog author as in myself will become more and more frustrated with the company or product, or the whole story creates its own individual development in the eyes of others who might blog about the same experience. The importance of preventing these multiplication effects is easy to understand. I’d rather talk about a bad experience with 10-20 people and keep the good experiences to myself. They are natural, and not many people like to hear about the daily show.
  
  
• How would you like to be approached by companies interested in reaching your audience?
  Since I allow people to comment on my thoughts, companies are able to get in contact with me in numerous ways. The best method on how to reach blog authors is to comment them and enhance the social network of a blog by becoming part of it. Criticism is fine, and counter-criticism makes the discussion worthy to read. However, a personal and direct approach is much better than coming up with a law suit. Not everyone is easily impressed by a law suit and some people like to battle companies because this will maximize your personal popularity among others. Companies can sue each other, but if a company tries to sue a blog author, they can have hundreds of them against them as they multiply like rabbits.