55 Million Blogs, and Now a Service to Track Them
Corporations are growing increasingly conscious of the power, and potential pitfalls, of blogging. A favorable review from an influential blogger can help generate the kind of buzz around a new product that traditional advertising struggles to achieve. A negative write-up can help doom a product before it even hits the market.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/technology/16blog.html