"In 2005, Employees Will Waste 551,000 Years Reading Them (Blogs)"

[displacedtexan]

Waste?

Seems to me that blogs are now being blamed for every workplace problem.

The article cited is from http://adage.com/news.cms?newsId=46494

You have to register (free) to read the rest.

Here's the heart of the matter:

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) -- Blog this: U.S. workers in 2005 will waste the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs.
Currently, the time employees spend reading non-work blogs is the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs.

About 35 million workers -- one in four people in the labor force -- visit blogs and on average spend 3.5 hours, or 9%, of the work week engaged with them, according to Advertising Age’s analysis. Time spent in the office on non-work blogs this year will take up the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs. Forget lunch breaks -- blog readers essentially take a daily 40-minute blog break.

Bogged down in blogs
While blogs are becoming an accepted part of the media sphere, and are increasingly being harnessed by marketers -- American Express last week paid a handful of bloggers to discuss small business, following other marketers like General Motors Corp. and Microsoft Corp. into the blogosphere -- they are proving to be competition for traditional media messages and are sapping employees’ time. --snip--

Bosses accept some screwing off as a cost of doing business; it keeps employees happy and promotes camaraderie. Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, said blogs have become the favored diversion for “office goof-off time,” though he notes it’s hard to segregate blog time since blogs often bounce readers to professional media sites.

Any thoughts?

[Ioo]

1. Wow 551,000 Years! that is a lot of DU posts!

[HamiltonHabs32]

2. I would rather read blogs

Then work.

I just feel like I am not wasting my time when im researching on the internet, Im learning more doing that then slaving away 8hrs a day at work... too bad I dont have the internet at work.

[displacedtexan]

3. It seems to me that...

if people have time to read blogs at work, their bosses don't know how to make the job challenging enough.

[HamiltonHabs32]

4. touche

However there are alot of jobs out there that don't give people an outlet to be creative... naturally these people are simply in the wrong field, but alot of stuck in the jobs they have

[displacedtexan]

5. Exactly! Like "Joe V The Volcano" jobs.

No wonder blogs are having such an impact on people!

[HamiltonHabs32]

6. I was thinking more like "Office Space"

type jobs.. but yeah we get the idea :)

[NoPasaran]

7. 3.5 hrs/week?

Pikers!