1. CULTURE CLASH: With only a few exceptions, "corporate blog" is a contradiction in terms. The ethos of blogging practically demands a single, independent voice, free from the strictures of corporate policy. Many of today's most popular blogs are built around the thinking of a single (and single-minded) individual: Arianna Huffington, Andrew Sullivan, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (Daily Kos) and Seth Godin, to name a few. In other words, if you work in a large organization, then by definition you do not fit the blogger's profile. Readers will assume, rightly or wrongly, that your blog posts have been vetted and approved by countless bureaucrats - and not what they're looking for.

2. TIME CRUNCH: Do you really have the time to write, edit and maintain a blog - or have sufficient funds to pay someone else to do it? To qualify as active, a blog should be refreshed at least twice a week. Anything less frequent is a column, not a blog. In fact, the most popular blogs are refreshed several times a day. For example, on one recent day (August 13, 2007), the Daily Koz blog was updated with no fewer than 17 times. That's 17 posts in just one day. Are you truly prepared for that kind of frequency? I didn't think so. By the way, this is also a leading reason why so many blogs are abandoned by their creators; it's simply too much work for too little impact.

3. TOUGH APPROVALS: Few organizations allow their employees to write whatever, whenever. Most likely, your blog will need to be approved, perhaps by several departments (marketing, legal, executive, etc.). Never mind, for a moment, that these reviews are likely to leech all signs of life from what you've written, transforming your carefully modulated vitriol into mere pabulum. No, the real problem is that by the time these approvals are completed, whatever topical issue you've written about has already faded into the dimly recalled past. And the workaround -- writing blog entries on "evergreen" topics - is a cure worse than the ailment. For if your blog isn't topical, what's the point?

4. LOW IMPACT: The sad, simple truth: Most blogs receive few visitors. Blogging is a winner-takes-all environment. That is, a relatively small number of blogs receive huge amounts of traffic, while all the others (71 million at last count) receive almost none. Guess which category your blog is most likely to end up in?

5. MORE MARKETING: The corollary to Point 4: You can attract visitors, but only if you devote serious energy to marketing your blog. However, aren't you thinking of your blog as a marketing tool itself? If so, then marketing your blog so that it can market your products or services is a bit like buying a new car so you can to drive to where your older car is parked. It just doesn't make sense.

6. BLOG WARS: Sadly, blogs attract flaming the way jam attracts flies -- and with about as much positive impact. The Web's culture of anonymity and free-floating hostility works against marketing efforts. If your blog does attract serious traffic, you'll likely need to devote serious time to refuting the outrageous posts of people with too much time on their hands. You know, the ones who delight in vicious fact-checking, nit-picking and naysaying. And if the anti-bloggers decide to wage a smear campaign against you, they can mobilize other idiots on other sites. The whole thing can easily snowball into a disaster. How bad can it get? Very. Consider the case of Kathy Sierra, author of the blog "Creating Passionate Users." She actually received death threats from her readers, including one post that featured a picture of her next to a hangman's noose.

On other sites, flame wars are increasingly common. Also, because visitors can post comments using pseudonyms, they operate in an environment of anonymity. Thus protected, they feel free to accuse others of fraud, lying, falsification and other myriad sins, typically without any evidence whatsoever. To put it lightly, this is not an environment conducive to effective marketing.

So what is an effective alternative to blogging? That would be your own newsletter, sent to your own targeted list; your own opinion columns submitted to relevant trade and business publications; and your own reports, presentations and other original, in-depth written communications.

So if you're interested in creating written communications that can truly help your business, then leave blogging to the kids and the political commentators. For most businesses in most industries, blogs are a drag.

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PETER KRASS is the president of Petros Consulting (www.petrosconsulting.com), a firm that helps clients improve written communications to attract, nurture, and develop excellent customers, quality suppliers, committed employees, and long-term partners. To learn how Petros Consulting can help you, call or write Peter today: 718-398-5811, peter@PetrosConsulting.com