Google: the Blog

Blogs are the popular thing to do on the net these days (as evidenced by the fact that we have to make our own and keep it updated!) The activity actually isn't very new: personal sites have existed long before anybody ever thought up the name, but social networking sites made it easier for newbies to jump in on the fun. Without Myspace, Facebook, Blogspot, and LiveJournal (to name a few), we would constantly have to wade through HTML and such to get anything posted (although the option is still there for those who want to dive in). In reality, all that these networking sites above did was to take a galaxy of random places on the web and smash them together with a common, streamlined site layout. It made it easier to contact and link up with your friends and acquaintances, but at the price of a bit of conformity. Still, there isn't a whole lot that separates blogs from just random personal websites after you take away the hype and the built in networking aspects.

In this light, corporate blogs don't make a lot of sense on the surface. Major corporations already have elegantly designed net-homes that can give more information than you would really care to read about their said services. The major drawback to these pages, however, is that they are rather impersonal; they are monoliths to the masses, rather than the closer intimacy of a personal website. I'm guessing this is why many companies are creating their own blogs; They can get out their message with more personality and intimacy than their main site. The blog that I looked at is Google's official blog, which is hosted by Blogger (a service that our own personal blogs are hosted on).

Simplicity is Google's image on the web, so it's no real surprise that their official blog is clean and uncluttered as well. Google's blog isn't any more distinct, in fact, than the multitude of the other sites hosted by the blogger service -- which is a cool little bit of humbleness that makes the journal seem a more realistic and friendly. The articles posted on the site may be a little more formal than most bloggers, but this is offset by the quirky little stories that make it seem a little more homelike. For example, two cool, personal stories are on the front page right now; One a recipe for making Buttercup Squash Soufflé, the other a warm tale about two unexpected baby deliveries that a couple of Google's employees got wound up in.


Google's corporate policy is "Don't be evil", which is a policy that sums up it's blogs world views. While the articles sometimes drift into corporate speak, the text is bit less formal than it could have been otherwise. Most of the articles are about technology that Google has designed, developed or are still working on (which obviously makes sense). Luckily, that's not all that they type about -- there are plenty of articles about the activities that their employees are doing outside and inside of the company. (They deck out their offices with caffeinated soap and binary clocks, or so one article suggests). You can't post comments on their articles, however, which disappointed me; It would be cool to interact with the company on this same personal level.

The Google blog might be a little more formal than most of the sites it shares it's bandwidth with on Blogger, but it still works just like it's brothers -- it gives its information with intimacy and personality. The clean white layout gives it an inviting edge over the cluttered, uglier look of some of it's competitors, and the more relaxed atmosphere of Google's culture really shines through. It's really not bad for a site mostly updated (or so it seems) by middle and upper management types. Overall, it is a well created blog (heck, well enough that I added it to my bookmarks), and it's a neat way for Google to better get out it's message.