If a magazine is cutting staffers, can it afford to increase blogging?

Several journalists have complained about the growing presence of bloggers. Yet I think that traditional media faces blogging and interacting with the new communications media with the advantage. You have the skills and respect; all that needs to be done is to make the need step in getting involved in the new media.

If the bean counters need a bone, maybe it’s a case of measuring the volume of traffic that comes to your blogs.

I also wonder if blogs also make your job easier, have you developed any stories, not blog related that came from blogs in the last year?

The most benefits from blogging come in the form of product development. In a study on Macromedia and Microsoft through interviews this year, product managers at both companies described how they gather feedback from customers easily through blogs. Yet both companies did this sort of product development before in meetings and email. Now it’s much more out in the open. That public nature of the online discourse means that customers get a real impression of the employee bloggers working with customers one on one. That's the sort of interaction that builds real brands. Plus, the companies have gained links, higher search engine rankings and more direct traffic. While customers who see that their interaction produces changes and results in better products become customer evangelists for Macromedia and Microsoft. And both companies did not even have to come up with the idea. Maybe its web 2.0, or maybe its really the marketing concept put into action as it should be.

Cutting editorial stuff vs increase blogging (as editorial offer) would suggest that producing editorial content via blogging is "time saving", needs less human resources, without losing editorial quality.

Maybe, but not too many editorial blogs I see, improve editorial quality, offerings and relevance per se. Many editorial blogs are badly planned, performed and orchestrated.

P.S.
Increasing blogs for the purpose of editorial marketing and reader relation can be very efficient, but should be paid from a different budget

Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that our blogging supplants magazine journalism. It only supplements it.

To answer John's question, I haven't developed non blog-related stories from blogging. There are two reasons for that. First, this blog is about blogs, and that's turned into one of the beats that Heather and I cover for the magazine. Secondly, I've been involved with a big editorial project that has dragged on for months. As a result, I haven't been writing too many stories of any kind for the magazine.