Mario Sundar's Speakeasy

In the growing up world of corporate blogging, Apple’s MobileMe blog still doesn’t cut it, reflecting a malaise that’s endemic with the service. Did you see how I incorporated high-sounding words into that sentence when I could have just said their status blog’s still lame! 🙂

MobileMe's status 2 weeks after their last post (Source: Ars Technica)

Jokes apart, when I first blogged about Apple’s foray into corporate blogging, I outlined 5 reasons why that was a step in the right direction as well as three reasons it sucked. Let’s see where they stand on those three fronts:

1. Anonymity of the blogger – Thumbs up

While they’ve teased their audience with the first name of the individual blogging (David G. anyone?) the blog is used as nothing more than a twitter status update – hence the name (MobileMe Status blog).

2. Have a regular face associated with the blog – Thumbs up

Thus far, all three posts have come from David G. So they have cultivated a sense of consistency in their social media communication thus far, with the last post coming on July 29 (almost 2 weeks ago). This is definitely NOT a well maintained blog.

3. Allow comments. Take feedback – Neutral

Yep. No progress on that count. However, they have Apple support forums that bear the brunt of user feedback, so I don’t expect the blog to duplicate this effort.

What’s not a good sign, though, is David C. of Ars Technica reporting that things are NOT getting better with the service:

It has been a hair under two weeks since Apple deemed MobileMe’s now-infamous mail woes a thing of the past on the MobileMe Status blog. Nevertheless, error messages like the one above and a healthy new Apple support discussion thread seem to disagree.

And, there’s no new post that either preempts or follows-up the error messages with a real-time story. Wonder what David G.’s gonna do next? To blog or not to blog, indeed.

Summary: Apple’s doing its best to deal with the user fall-out with the MobileMe issues they’re faced with. While their forums do the job they were created to do, their MobileMe status blog isn’t updated with the right information. Great intent, but poor execution on the corporate blogging front. Disappointed.

Read the saga of Apple’s foray into corporate blogging in my own words below:

1. Apple’s foray into corporate blogging is – Lame!

2. My experience creating a MobileMe account

3. Steve Jobs’ admission that MobileMe sucks

Or, read about my Apple history here: once you get past the “Why does MobileMe suck?” tweets you’ll get to see my real self 🙂

What should Apple do to communicate better with their fanatic users?

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Filed under: Business Blogging