Oh, The Irony

I shared Brian Beutler's initial reaction to the Google public policy blog:

At first I thought it strange that they host their site on blogspot, which all good people agree is inferior blogging software. But then I realized that, duh, Google OWNS blogspot and it would be a significant heresy if they were on typepad or wordpress or a standalone domain. But THEN I though, well, why doesn't Google just buy a better hosting company, which would allow them to both run their blog on a decent platform and have the added bonus of letting them advertise for themselves

Quite so. I wonder what impact this will have. Google has a wildly better reputation among American elites than do most major companies, so a blog about what Google thinks about policy issues (here, for example is the company's take on net neutrality) has a much better chance of being taken seriously than would, say, an ExxonMobil blog. The availability of these kinds of methods of communication might undercut some of the efficacy of "astroturf" organizing tactics and advantage interest groups and companies that have good enough reputations to try to energize people under their own names.