Excellent comments. When I read this on Toby's site this morning, I was just a little, umm, surprised. This is another sad example of "not getting it".

To be fair to jupiter it is the PR company that should shoulder much of the responsibility. They were the ones that facilitated that communication and they should have looked into who was making the request and then communicated it to jupiter the risks and opportunities.

The problem for Jupiter is this is what they are supposed to be experts in, this is what they sell. They are the experts that help companies make sense of the internet, and when they so clearly fail in engaging the blogosphere it is egg on face time.

Karl,

Great piece. I think companies like Forrester and Jupiter don't know what to make of blogs—and to your point are not researching the subject matter appropriately. I recently blogged about a Forrester event and critiqed some of their delivery.

http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2006/06/breakfast_with_.html

Then an interesting thing happened. Someone from Forrester subscribed to my blog, only to un-subscribe less than a week later.

Strange. Maybe they saw no value? The research companies are a little too fixated with statistics and charts—but they'll figure it out eventually. Until then, the irony is that blogs are often way ahead of the research firms when it comes to spotting trends and providing commentary.

Good post.

For whatever it's worth, these are all forecasts...if a forecaster were that good, then they'd be better off forecasting interest rates and making a bundle of money that way. Forecasts should be looked at as only a guess, based on a combination of models and assumptions, with the most relevant word being "assumptions".

I get your point Allen, all forcasts should be taken with a pinch of salt.

But there are so many levels of irony in this story.

1. jupiter makes outlandish claim about the growth of blogs in big businesses
2. Bloggers say hang on, how did you come up with that figure?
3. jupiter says we're not telling you because your not an accredited member of the press
4. the bloggers talk about it, and jupiter is not participating in the debate

If they had comments or trackback enabled on either their blogs, or even the press release that made this claim they would be able to participate in the conversation about their research.

God help any clients they're advising on interacting with the blogoshpere.

I think they are going to have to reinvent their business because the walled garden of analysts does not play well in the transparent conversation space that the blogosphere is.

IMHO their analyst blogs should be leading the conversation.

Karl - thanks for the shout out and for continuing the thread.

'Don't kill the messenger' might be a subtitle of this story. For the agency to shoulder the entire responsibility of 'blogger relations', in this situation, may not be fair since JupiterResearch has positioned itself as a leader in social media. In fact, they probably have more knowledge about the space than their PR firm.

But what does a PR professional do when a client provides a mandate that might create a blog storm that could effect both client and agency? Two companies' reputations could be at stake with this one. One commenter on the Diva Marketing post said she would be "advising my clients to look for market research elsewhere."

By the way, Fard Johnmar forked over $750 to purchase the report. He posted his opinion and it is not a pretty picture. He advises not to buy the report and not to accept the results.
http://www.healthcarevox.com/2006/06/corporate_blogging_and_jupiter.html

Wow, Jupiter is getting a lesson in social media relations right here. They are actually closing ranks:

"JupiterResearch is not revealing any more information about the survey to any member of the media"

Which is exactly the wrong thing to do. How can you have any sort of authority about blogs and social media if you are not part of the conversation?

I'm surprised it hasn't garnered more attention, but it's certainly snowballing.

All:

Hopefully, my conversation with the analyst will shed some light on this issue. JupiterResearch might just want to allow the analyst to provide commentary on this issue that I can publish on my blog. Then, I'll be able to provide answers to the questions I raised. That might help tamp the flames on this one a little bit.

Superb comments Karl! When I reas such reports like this one, I can think only one thing: "God, save us from consultants!"
I will always be amazed by the lack of common sense and blind trust in numbers!

Was there any data slice on if the blogs are going to be internal or external. I think that makes a big difference.

That's pretty dumb for them to make up big claims and not back it up with data that we can sort and scrutinize.