I have become pretty interested in blogging and its effects as it relates to business. There are a number of different aspects that I want to cover this week.

Today, I want to point you to Lee at Commoncraft. Last month, he posted an entry on George Dafermos’ paper, Blogging the Market. Dafermos covers a lot of interesting ground in this paper.

He starts by talking about the agora of Ancient Athens.

In the city-state of Athens, about 3,000 years ago, Athenian citizens used to meet regularly at the “town centre” to announce projects, discuss politics and military affairs and decide on matters of common interest. What was so peculiar about this congregation – that came to be known as ‘agora’ – is that all Athenian citizens had the right to speak their own mind about almost anything and address their fellow citizens and when a decision had to be made, no one’s vote mattered more than someone else’s.

Dafermos believes weblogs create these coversations again.

He talks about Gizmodo’s for-profit blogging model. He discusses Macromedia’s strategy to use blogging as a new products communication tool. He devotes a section to the risks of allowing employees to talk openly about the company. Some of the more interesting sections discuss weblogs as knowledge management systems and how weblogs can motivate employees to share knowledge by giving proper credit to its origins.

Check it out.