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.

Weblogs, or blogs, are the periodic rants and raves of millions of hobbyists and armchair pundits, who take advantage of easy-to-use publishing platforms to opine on everything from politics, to pornography, to the latest computer gadgets, and everything in between.