Naked Conversations made me want to take my clothes off and talk to the world.

It’s not immoral. It’s called blogging. Authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel opened the world’s imagination with this in-depth book on one of the latest developments in online business marketing.

Robert Scoble writes one of the most read business blogs in the world and is recognized as one of the pioneers of this new medium – though he gives credit to Dave Winer, the man who invented blogging, for giving him inspiration. Shel Israel has been on the forefront of several important technological innovations, including PowerPoint, FileMaker and Sun Microsystems’s workstations. These two make an excellent writing team.

Scoble and Israel make some interesting observations about business marketing and point out some of the mistakes that traditional companies have made when they started blogging. These observations are very helpful for anyone considering a company blog. But they go beyond the mere do’s and don’ts of blogging. They also include examples of companies doing wrong and companies doing it right.

Calling blogging “word of mouth on steroids,” they point out that companies who blog earn trust because they are willing to “have a conversation” with their customers instead of just talking at them as companies have done for the past 50 years or more. Piggybacking off of Seth Godin’s observation that TV and radio advertising are “interruptions,” Scoble and Israel encourage companies to enter into a two-way conversation with their customers through a company blog and add that companies that have done so have increased their credibility in the marketplace. One of the best examples of this, they say, is Microsoft, Scoble’s long-time employer.

One of the best chapters in the book dealt with companies who shouldn’t blog. I thought Scoble’s and Israel’s observations about companies that cannot benefit from a company blog were interesting, informative and dead on. They offer tips on how to blog through a company crisis, how to learn from negative comments on your blog and even how to deal with bosses if you are an employee with a blog. Scoble and Israel are not afraid to take risks, particularly Scoble, who has used his blog to confront company executives about company policy and even has influenced changes at his company as a result. Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing The Way Businesses Talk With Customers offers tips for employees in dealing with similar situations and how companies can encourage an atmosphere of openness through this type of blogging.

The primary negative that I see in Naked Conversations is in its encouragement of promiscuous linking. Most proponents of company blogs believe, and take their view from Scoble and Israel as well as others who have used their blogs in this manner, that linking profusely to the competition keeps customers coming back to you. There may be some truth in that but increased competition for online market share will make this practice less desirable as more companies migrate online and start their own blogs. There are enough third-party sources in most industries that linking to the competition is not necessary and many times is undesirable. I would have liked a more balanced view on this point in Naked Conversations.

However, Scoble’s and Israel’s point that praising the competition when they do something better than you is a good point and I agree with it. Being honest about your shortcomings and weaknesses is the best way to earn trust and credibility in the marketplace and blogs, by nature, allow companies to do this more so than any other medium.

I highly recommend Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing The Way Businesses Talk With Customers and if you read just one book this year on business blogging, Naked Conversations should be the one.

Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing The Way Businesses Talk With Customers was published by John Wiley & Sons in 2006.