Checking in on the sad state of industry analyst bloggers

Technology blogs are a dime a dozen these days, but surprisingly, industry analysts have been slow to adopt them. You could probably count on one hand the few analyst bloggers high on the blogosphere totem pole. So there is a bit ofirony here. You'd expect these technology"thought-leaders" to embrace new technologies to disseminate their ideas, but instead they seem apprehensive. But there is a good reason why. In the first of a recent two-part special report entitled The State of Analyst Weblogs, analyst reporter Tekrati writes:

Blogs present a fundamental cultural change for the analyst business. Analyst business processes assume analysts have control of interactions with clients and research subjects. These processes also ensure that findings and opinions are subjected to scrutiny and polish before public release. Blogs fly in the face of those processes.

But this is about to change. Currently about 10 percent of the 350 analyst firms the company tracks have well-established blogs, and that is likely to double over the next year, based on comments from the analysts Tekrati tracks.

That sounds great, but jumping this late into the game means a lot of catching-up to do. Tekrati lays out three key challenges for industry analysts: closing the credibility gap; obeying the law of proximity (being relevant, real-time, and timely); and passion. While these hold true for anyone serious about blogging, popular analysts can leverage the industry recognition they already have and use it as a spring board.

So if Tekrati is right and more analysts start blogs, will you read them?Let us know in Talkback.