Changing from the inside? More like an opportunity to battle it out.

I knew this was going to happen.

Anyone who's read Naked Conversations will have noted the authors' persistent message: Apple doesn't blog. Google doesn't either. Be warned...

Yet someone has spoken up. The masked blogger has come along and reached out to Shel Israel in public (or perhaps in private is a better way of putting it). I share the masked blogger's predicament and fully sympathize with his frustration.

Millions of bloggers *get* this social medium thing. Yet just as many companies do not. While it can't be denied that the international business community has been slow to pick up on the arrival of blogs, I think it's a little unfair to criticize the slow-moving conglomerates for not having a blogging voice.

Some companies are slicker than others, faster to adapt to the winds of change. Granted this gives them an advantage, and the case studies of Kryptonite and even Scobles' close call with IE7's toolbar issues prove the validity of an alert presence, but you just can't escape the inertia and the firm grip of traditional, tried and tested media.

Having said that, I don't think this post was the most suitable place for corporate messaging, and Dell's Richard Binhammer made a brave move to post what is a shiney, carefully-written press release.

While having the Senior Manager for Dell's Corporate Communications underlying his company's commitment to hearing its customers can by no means be dismissed as a bad thing, you can't get away from the fact that it was a well-worded attempt to, how does Scoble put it? "..improve their image", at the expense of everyone else.

Now that someone has entered the argument *officially*, the best that could possibly happen here is that the major competitors slug it out. Thing is, as there's no-one else out there right now, I doubt that's going to happen in a hurry.

1-0 to Dell, but it should have been disallowed.