Power of blogs

It’s well-known that many corporations fear blogs simply because of the power that they hold. Blogs (real ones, not those marketing ones) help to expose the cracks in a company. The problem is that all companies wish to be perceived as perfect, yet consumers seem to have a major lack of trust for companies. How can they blame us?
Scoble has written I would say his greatest piece ever in Are you afraid to blog? What makes this entry so wonderful is that you can tell he is speaking the truth and this is coming from someone who works for one of the most hated companies in the world (okay, that might have been a bit harsh).
What his entry explores is how word-of-mouth spreads at a ridiculous speed in the blogosphere and is so fast that companies can not keep up unless they maintain a blog themselves. With a blog, a company is able to announce their mistake and provide an explanation the same day as the mistake is found within the blogosphere. Traditionally, you would have to wait for a press release a couple of days later at the earliest.
The blogosphere has empowered the consumer to the point where every market is going to be a buyer’s market from now on. If you are looking for the best LCD currently on the market you do a search on Gizmodo or Engadget and maybe later you will hit up some of the traditional sites. Why is this? In my case I trust the writers of Gizmodo and Engadget more than I do Wired for example. It’s easier to build a relationship with a blog because of their open communication.
Blogs are not a technology to fear, but one that should be embraced. Sure they change the rules of marketing quite a bit, but when have those rules ever been written in stone? Coudal has a Jewelboxing blog that I find highly entertaining and has led me to make a purchase on more than one occassion. In the late 90’s if your company was without a website you found out how quickly you were left behind. I think the same will hold true for blogs in the near future.