To blog, or not to blog? That is the question vexing marketing managers and public relations executives as they struggle to get to grips with the soaring popularity of weblogs, the online journals that are redefining the way millions of people around the world get news and entertainment on the internet.

For companies, the rising importance of blogging as a communications tool presents a difficult dilemma.

On the one hand, avoiding the blogosphere altogether seems a bad idea. Kryptonite, a maker of bicycle locks, was caught flat-footed last year when an enterprising blogger discovered he could pick his expensive Kryptonite lock with the end of a plastic pen. Kryptonite’s lack of a significant blog of its own meant it had no efficient way to respond to the original blogger’s claim. A video exposing the lock’s vulnerability soon spread into the mainstream media.

On the other hand, companies that wish to engage with the blogosphere face an intractable credibility problem. Bloggers are an anti-establishment lot, and messages from big business are automatically suspect. In bloggers’ eyes, most companies’ attempts to insert themselves into online conversation come across as ham-fisted at best, and disingenuous at worst.