I’ve seen two examples lately of companies with blogs that used them well in response to, and as part of, blogosphere conversations. These are case studies other companies could apply to their own thinking about how to communicate in a networked world.

First came Barbara Krause, principal of Krause Taylor Associates, whose firm came under attack by Yahoo! blogger Jeremy Zawodny. Zawodny accused Krause Taylor of spamming bloggers when he received what appeared to be a clearly off-target email pitch. The original title of the post named Krause Taylor as a PR spammer. Among the many comments the post inspired (most of which took issue with Zawodny’s complaint) were two from Krause Taylor’s client, Six Apart, defending the company. But the best was from Barbara Krause herself:

We goofed when we sent you the email yesterday about our client???s news and we???re sorry. Here???s what happened. We were sending information about our client???s news to journalists and bloggers who have previously covered related topics, in this case video on demand, portals, AOL. The Yahoo Search Blog???s email address came up and was erroneously included. We try very hard NOT to spam anyone, and we simply made a mistake this time. Our sincere apologies ??? and you can bet it won???t happen again!

A simple acknowledgment of a mistake and an apology is a rare approach for a company to take—especially companies with lawyers. But Krause’s response is professional, dignified, and honest. It didn’t satisfy Zawodny, though,who responded that the explanation was “a bit fishy,” so Krause elaborated:

Here???s the blow by blow description of what happened: We did a search on MediaMap using key words which pertained to the news we were announcing. Those words were video on demand, portals and AOL. The Yahoo Search Blog record came up, presumably because the record contains the word ???portal.??? That entry was then placed on the list of thirty or so people to whom we were going to send the information. It obviously shouldn???t have been!

Since then, I did another search on MediaMap specifically on you—and your personal blog and personal email address is also in the database. I am happy to contact MediaMap and try (as others have already apparently tried to do) to get you and the Yahoo Search Blog removed. In fairness to MediaMap, though, they are quite explicit in telling PR professionals that we should not be sending press releases to Yahoo Search Blog, and on your personal entry, it says ???BEWARE! Proceed with caution when contacting this blogger.??? Good advice!

That did the trick for Zawodny, who thanked Krause for the details. Krause Taylor winds up looking pretty damn sophisticated and smart—and human. I wonder how many people reading the exchange considered that the agency would be a good one to work with.

Then, more recently, Dan Gillmor points to Pajamas Media, which I reported on here on November 16. The company had launched a journalist blog network and titled it Open Source Media. The announcement brought swift condemnation from the open source community, not to mention a soft-spoken notice that the name was already taken. Rather than resort to lawyers or fight to keep the name, the folks behind the network simply apologized for the oversight and announced they were changing the name back to Pajamas Media. They’ve even updated the post with a friendly response from the owner of the OSM moniker. Here’s a taste of Pajama’s notice:

We are re-assuming our identity as Pajamas Media. (Just give us a few days to sort the technical issues out.) In short, the whole experience of being caught with our pajamas down has been a bit embarrassing, but in the end, when we realized we could get our beloved name back, we were overjoyed. So a warm, hearty thanks to all of you who expressed your displeasure with our phony identity.

(The argument could be made that the Pajamas item isn’t really a blog since there’s no feed for the content and no commenting. But it’s a dated post published in reverse chronological order using what appears to be a blogging utility as part of a blog network.)

Two companies that made mistakes that could have cost them reputation instead managed to turn the tables and make themselves look pretty smart and savvy by fessing up to their errors and apologizing to the online community. There’s a lesson here. The only question is whether more entrenched organizations can learn it.