This news has already made the rounds, but I thought I’d post it anyways. GM has launched it’s first blog. FastLane is a nice little blog.

Devin Reams, of BusinessBits fame, and I had a quick chat.

Here’s an excerpt:

Devin says:
Now, I had a quick question for you.
Devin says:
GM has launched its corporate blog (blognewschannel.com), any take on the future implications?
Jeremy says:
Okay, this is nice.
Jeremy says:
Some things they’re doing right…
Jeremy says:
Comments & Trackbacks enabled. Site search. Syndication. Decent editorial tone.
Jeremy says:
Some issues include that everything is posted by “Editor”. Feed isn’t full text. And we don’t know who the “Editor” is, at all.
Jeremy says:
But, overall, for the first car company, and one of the first Fortune 500 companies period to try blogging… Easily an 8/10.
Devin says:
Wow, interesting.
Devin says:
Now it looks like the ‘blogger’ is Michael Wiley perhaps…
Jeremy says:
He’s the guy coordinating, yeah.
Devin says:
GM Communicastions Director of ‘New Media’
Devin says:
So you think it should be defined who it is, exactly? Like Google?
Jeremy says:
There needs to be some measure of personal responsibility and identity, yeah.
Jeremy says:
I mean, you could have 100 different employees blogging on it, doesn’t matter. As long as you know who they are and they aren’t all “Editor”.
Devin says:
Make sense, it says their are ‘editors’…
Devin says:
What about the links to other blogs? Good move?
Jeremy says:
Definitely. GM is making a statement that with this project (probably a 3 month pilot) they want to participate in the blogosphere.
Jeremy says:
Not just talk to the blogosphere.
Jeremy says:
That said, there’ll need to be more “Honest” content in the future. For now it’s fairly marketing-esque. But it’s okay. Baby steps.
Jeremy says:
Content’s easy to change, especially when the project is displaying such an open and participatory attitude.
Devin says:
Yeah sounded very ‘marketing’ at first read.
Devin says:
Well, those are good points, thanks for talking about it, Jeremy.

I applaud GM’s move. Obviously I wish that InsideBlogging had been part of this, but I’m very impressed with what they’ve pulled together. Well done.