Wal-Mart's Employees Are Blogging

A recent New York Times article looks at an interesting development. Certain Wal-Mart employees in merchandising are blogging about some of the products the retail giant is selling – and not always favorably.Called Check Out, the blog features comments by employees that specialize in gadgets, lawn and garden, sustainability and other topics. Other than product reviews, they also tackle such subjects as what taxpayers will do with this year’s economic stimulus checks and thoughts on Super Tuesday. On the product side, bloggers mainly make it known what new products manufacturers are putting out there and what will be available at Wal-Mart. But as the Times article points out, there is also criticism. One blogger panned a movie sold by the retailer and another didn’t have the most favorable things to say about Microsoft’s Vista operating system.Many retailer websites allow customers to comment on and review products, but this takes that idea one step further. Will we see more of this, or are most merchants unlikely to allow their employees to say negative things about some of the products they sell?