David Kline, co-author of one of the handful of books published thus far on blogging (Blog! How the Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics, Business and Culture) emailed me this week to ask for a quote for the article he’s working on about what’s holding the F500 back from blogging and what it will take for blogging to go mainstream. He referenced the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki’s stat that only 3% of F500s are blogging. I responded with the following mini rant:

Fear & blogging on the blogosphere Long Tail
(with apologies to Hunter S. Thompson)

Fear is the single most important thing holding corporate America back from embracing blogging. Fear of being open, fear of a two-way conversation, fear of not being able to control the message, fear of the time commitment. Just makes sense. If you put blogging in the basket of corporate communications it runs absolutely antithetical to so-called current best practices.

So what will make this change? Again, fear. Fear of not embracing the new media technologies which so many consumers are now adopting, whether it’s a video iPod or a blog. Fear of not being where your customers are. Which, increasingly, is online.

Well, that’s my thought for the day. Now back to cleaning up the mess on my desk… Oh, and don’t misunderstand. I’m not being critical of the F500s efforts thus far to launch blogs. Just realistic.