blogging for research

anyone using blogs for user research or have an opinion about its potential and short comings (beyond “it’s what they do, not what they say” rational)?

You could use the recent Wikipedia mishaps as a starting point of their shortcomings. What people say as truth may not always be.

I was the president of France for a few days in 1974. For example.

As far as researched based on opinion, it might be a great way to gather that information.

I gave a presentation along these lines at the IDSA conference last year. You can pull the presentation slides here:

There are a few approaches:

-reviewing blogs to see how people are reacting and, yes, somethimes even using products (I have an example in the presentation of someone blogging their experience with the new apple mouse)

-creating a subject specific blog as a way of gathering comments and feedback from a niche audience

-observing corporate and/or designer blogs for trends and ideas