Guradian reports on the power of the blog for corporates

Andrew Clarke tells how Dell learned recently about the growing power of the blogosphere when it recalled 4.1m laptop batteries after a video that showed one of its computers bursting into flames was posted on the internet. The brief clip zig-zagged through cyberspace and went from cult viewing to national television.

"It's a new culture, a new world," says Nielsen BuzzMetrics' marketing vice-president, Max Kalehoff. "For every company there's a huge, long tail of blogs with many, many niches."

He maintains that although blogs can be a thorn in the side of carefully nurtured brands, they can also be useful in alerting executives to hazards ahead.