Completely misunderstanding the point of a corporate weblog, Chrysler has launched The Firehouse, a weblog for journalists which can only be read by those who apply and prove they work for a “known and established media organization.” This is idiotic. This is stupid. This is insane. Completely illogical and non-sensical. Chrysler wants journalists to read the blog, get the “story” and then re-publish the same thing in their own “established” medium for general public consumption. Which will then, of course, if worthy, be blogged anyway. We just don’t get it. Clueless Chrysler needs to go talk to GM, which has a clue about blogging, and get a few tips. Peek
UPDATE: Jason Vines, the man behind the The Firehouse weblog didn’t like what we had to say and commented on another blog about it. Additionally, he explains the motivation behind the launch, which does make sense. Read his commentary after the jump.
Jason Vinse writes:
It didn’t take long for the “brave” web-sters to direct their obviously clueless blather at TheFirehouse.biz. A recent posting on another blog called our media-only site “stupid… insane…completely illogical and non-sensical.”
Hmmm…I could use the same terms to describe the cowardly anonymous poster’s understanding of what we’re doing here…but I won’t.
We might do a public site at some point but the idea right now is there’s just so much news going on, that like the V-gram you get monthly from me, we want to go beyond the news releases and canned events. The Firehouse.biz is a chance to have an open dialogue with journalists who report on our company and the industry and who literally bombard us with their comments, questions, rants and bad jokes. Unlike our media website, which is a one-way deal, TheFirehouse.biz is a two-way street that goes off the page of the press release and allows reporters to vent, probe, attack, while we get a chance to respond on the fly from anywhere in the world
