GM’s Smallblock Engine blog shuts down tomorrow today after exactly one year, perhaps the first highly-publicized Fortune 500 blog to bite the dust. This sounds like a natural death. It was an event-driven blog, created for the 50th anniversary of the Corvette’s small-block engine. And the party is over. Makes sense. (Dave Hill, chief engineer of the Corvette, is also retiring which kind of wraps it up nicely.)
You could say it created a category for corporate blogs: event-specific and time-limited. It never got a huge number of comments from readers. But that’s OK too. Remember, a blog is just a tool. Use it anyway you want as long as you make it a good read, you’re honest and a bit of passion shows through.
Addendum: in April 2005, halfway through the year, the GM folks blogged about whether or not to turn the smallblock engine blog into a powertrain blog. A number of commenters said "oh, yes please do!" But one guy left an astute remark:
"Keep to one topic… don’t try to take on too much in one blog."
Here’s Rick Bruner’s Nov. 2004 post crowing about the launch of the Smallblock Engine blog:
"This is big: the biggest car company in the world now has a blog… "
GM Blog Retires on 1st Birthday
GM’s Smallblock Engine Blog, the corporate blog that started it all, retires today after a year of celebrating the 50th anniversary of GM’s smallblock engine. GM’s Fastlane blog gets most of the credit for establishing GM’s leadership position in the …
Trackback by Strategic Public Relations — November 4, 2005 @ 9:07 am
Actually, for GM, I’d say the blog was worth every penny just for being buzzworthy! There were probably more people talking about the blog than reading it!
Comment by Taryn — February 13, 2006 @ 5:31 pm