David Pogue of New York Times lists the advantages of blogging and participating in social media like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, etc.

Some reasons - you’ll gain trust, goodwill and positive attention. You’ll put a human face on your company. And you’ll learn stuff about your customers that you wouldn’t have discovered any other way.

“When a company embraces the possibilities of Web 2.0, though, it makes contact with its public in a more casual, less sanitized way that, as a result, is accepted with much less cynicism. Web 2.0 offers a direct, more trusted line of communications than anything that came before it.

It’s not just blogging, either. It could be podcasts. Or videos. Permit the public to make mash-ups using your company’s characters, logos, music or products. Let’s have some more inside looks: at your product design cycles, your focus groups, your rejected designs, your employee cubicle videos.” Link.