In my ongoing quest to learn what--if anything--makes CEO and corporate bloggers tick, here is some interesting insight from the folks at the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki.

Their most recent research (as of February 2008) reveals that 54 (10.8%) of the Fortune 500 are blogging. Taking the further step of seeking patterns in Fortune 500 blogging, they created a bias graph to analyze the nature of 30 randomly selected F500 blogs.

Many big names were in the sample set. Yahoo! and Google. General Mills and General Electric. McGraw Hill and Cox Communications. Rated on content style (Information vs. Commentary) and writing style (Logical & Formal vs. Casual & Colloquial), the companies scored well on the personality side.

As the authors note, corporate blogs do not necessarily trend towards formality to protect their public image.

Approximately two-thirds of the blogs studied were more casual and personable than formal and cold, indicating that these companies are utilizing blogs as a way to humanize the brand. One-third of the measured blogs opted to create the bulk of their content with a "commentary" bias.

Dot.com billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban jumped on corporate blogging early, and has been a fearless commentator ever since. Well known for tossing lit firecrackers into the blogosphere, his is a true voice on the Web.

Check out his "rules" for anyone thinking about starting a company, which also links to a CEO buddy’s similar list on how to save money running a startup.

Have a great weekend.

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