ZDNet offers a commentary by C|Net’s Daniel Berlind on the role of blogging via an intranet. Based largely on an interview Berlind conducted with UserLand Software CEO Scott Young includes time codes so you can find the spot in Berlind’s podcast where Young made related comments—an interesting blend of text and audio.

Young asserts in the interview that e-mail will always have its place, but as blogs proliferate, the best uses of both channels will become clearer. Too many documents distributed by e-mail are inadvertently (or intentionally) deleted; some are lost in the overwhelming flood of e-mail so many employees have to deal with; some never even reach their intended recipients at all.

Consider a departmental report:

“So if you’re writing your department report, post it to your department Web log and make sure people can see it by subscribing to it. And then it takes the burden off of you to have to ensure that everybody in the company sees it. You assume because its available, it’s out there. I’ve had some people say that you never can assume that and then I just point back to the Web logs and I say ‘It just happens a lot faster with the blogs.’ People do find it, and I think that you can make that assumption now that people are going to find it and it’s up to them to actually find it and I think that’s what’s going to drive some of the changes in behavior in companies, where you have to sit around wondering if you told all the right people. Just post it!” said Young.

Blogs also provide companies with advantages over more expensive document management systems, according to Berlind. Blogs use HTML, which is widely supported, making them linkable and searchable. “The idea is not to author them in Word or e-mail unless it’s absolutely required.”