Blog URL: http://blimp.fujifilm.com/ ("Fujifilm Captains' Blog")
About: Did you know that Fujifilm, the giant Japanese film and camera maker, has a company blimp? Maybe you saw its debut at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. (Maybe I did too, but I was barely out of diapers at the time.) Now you can learn about the Fujifilm Blimp's latest adventures at the Fujifilm Blimp blog.
Content: The archives go back to June 2005. The posting is sporadic - you might get three posts in five days, and then no posts for two weeks. Complaint: If Fujifilm itself has an official blog, where's the link to it here? Won't most people get bored of the blimp after a few minutes and start wondering what the next FinePix camera will be like? Also, why link to a Boeing corporate blog?
Blog Design: Hello!? Where are the reader comments and trackbacks? Instead of real collaborative communication, all you get here is the old-school "gospel word from above" and a quiet petition for reader emails. At least the interface is clean and bright and occasional photos spruce up the blog. This being Fujifilm, though, I'd love to see many more photos (and maybe even videos) of the blimp's crew and travels.
Other: This looks more like a bare, "I'm just getting started" personal blog than a full-blown information resource by a huge business. The blogroll has only three links and there is only a tiny amount of biographical information about the blimp's crew.
Overall: If for no other reason than the user- and search-engine-friendliness of blogging, I think Fujifilm will can reach far more people with its new blimp blog than it has with its Web 1.0-ish "about the blimp" site. While I wonder how seriously most consumers will take the "official adventures" storyline (hey, it's just a blimp, right?), the Fujifilm Captains' Blog remains a decent example of a big business using blogging to enhance its corporate image.
Comment Preview