I understand that you (part of a small company, I presume) have a need to be found, but the author is in fact right when he says that blogging and tweeting by c

I understand that you (part of a small company, I presume) have a need to be found, but the author is in fact right when he says that blogging and tweeting by companies is really just advertising, nothing more and nothing less. Most people do not "start conversations" with companies, they start conversations with other people. What company blogs and tweets and Facebook fan pages are, of course, good for, is providing an avenue for companies to push their marketing onto consumers that care so much about the product they've actually subscribed to the blog, twitter account and Facebook page without bothering anyone else. In that sense they're a huge improvement over traditional advertising. That does not mean, however, that they're not still just that: advertising.