Take a look at this piece I wrote some time ago.

To summarise it, for business purposes using one of the free hosted services is not an option. Just as a MyCompanyName@eircom.net email address does not portray the right image neither does a MyCompanyName.wordpress.com Web site address. You need to have your own branded blog and/or Web site. e.g. blog.MyCompanyName.ie

This entails purchasing your own domain name and hosting services. Luckily neither are expensive and, better still, blog software is usually free. The drawback is that you must have some technical know-how to install and configure the software. There are excellent tutorials available on the Internet to guide you through this. If you have neither the time nor the inclination to do this yourself you can hire the services of someone to do it for you. [* Jim raises his hand in the air with a sneaky grin *]

Yes. You have full control over the content.

However, it is frowned upon by both bloggers and blog readers. Would you insult a customer by correcting their grammar or elocution? Even if it were possible, would you delete something they said?

That said, there are occasions when you do need to delete comments and it is perfectly acceptable. e.g. A reader has used inappropriate language or has written something potentially libellous.

Luckily there is plenty of software available to control much of this automatically and in a worst case scenario either offenders can be banned or feedback restricted to a set group of readers.

Brilliant! Probably the best thing ever happened.

Now you have an opportunity to let all your customers, existing and potential, see how well you handle criticism and complaints. Not only are you placating the complainant but you are enhancing your credibility with the others.

Yes. Technically a politician representing Ballyhaunis South-Central could receive feedback from someone with absolutely no Irish connection in the Australian Outback. It is highly unlikely though – why would Bruce from Alice Springs bother?

Closer to home, the Fianna Fáil TD for Ballyhaunis South-Central is quite likely to have someone outside their patch leave a comment on their blog. e.g. They could have a Labour activist criticise Fianna Fáil policy.

That’s politics. They’ll just have to live with it.

However, Ireland being Ireland, and politics being of the parish-pump variety, they can expect the vast majority of feedback to be from locals.

Even if they are not leaving feedback you can tell by using any of a variety of freely available software tools and services. The one I recommend is by an Irish company called StatCounter. You will not be able to determine their name, but you will glean enough information to know if they are regular readers, their geographic location, which of your posts/articles they are most interested in, and much more.

Example: While I was speaking, someone at the Clarion hotel was browsing this Web site. They came to the site via a Google search for “daly blog glic”. They were using an Apple running OSX and using the Safari browser. It is pretty easy guess who they were.

While this may seem somewhat Big Brother-ish, it is standard practice for all Web sites – unless you know how your Web site is being used you cannot tell what you are doing right and what you are getting wrong. As in any other aspect of your business you need to measure performance.

By leaving a comment in the box below you would be granting that permission. Even then your privacy is of concern and therefore while the name and any web address you give while commenting will be published, your email address will not. I have no wish to be the cause for your mailbox getting clogged with junk because a spambot scraped your email address off this Web site