Airlines In The Blogosphere

NYTime's article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/business/29blog.html?em&ex=1201755600&en=bbc180f365e35f87&ei=5087%0A) cites the current use of travel blogs and blogs within the Airline Industry. I can see this being huge in the world of travel as it is a huge word of mouth business. Most interesting was the section where it spoke of Blogs as a vehicle to gauge customer reactions to policy implementations. The article cites "Blogs can also be a quick way to gauge customer reaction to policies. Early last year, Bill Owen, a schedule planner at Southwest, wrote in a post that the airline sold its inventory only three months in advance. But after an outcry online, it changed its policy and now sells tickets at least four months in advance" Interesting in that this mode of delivery, so to speak, is acting as a free test area for companies and also that it is free. One these blogs are attached to the main pages of companies web sites ( as it is at http://blog.delta.com/) then they will surely generate a sufficient amount of traffic and become more and more efficient vehicles to delivery company plans and get a good taste of how successful these implementations will be.