Great editorial on the risks of corporate blogging by Struan Robertson, Editor of OUT-LAW.com – the best new media law service around.

After a quick sentence about the benefits of corporate blogging he points out its risks:

• the risk of defamation
• unhappy bloggers generating negative PR
• copyright and trade mark infringement (particularly easy)
• a joke provoking a sexual or racial harassment claim
• reader feedback sealing a contract without that vital small print
• … and more

But “the biggest obstacle to corporate blogging is not the law; it’s finding good bloggers”.

Struan wants to know if OUT-LAW should blog:

We’ve been running OUT-LAW for the last six years. It isn’t a blog but it has achieved many of the same things as a good corporate blog … But we recognise that OUT-LAW is now more than just a shop window. We have thousands of loyal users and we’d love to engage with them more than the current site allows. A blog might help. So should we blog? … Please let us know.

It’s the thumbs up from me.

More on the Blogging4Business plenary session on corporate blogging which Struan introduced: Rules, regs and how to do business blogging safely.