PR Squared: The SEC on Blogs: Come On In, the Water's Fine

According to an AP story from November 7th:

"In the first official communication posted to a blog by a chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox said he was intrigued by the idea of letting companies use Weblogs to disseminate important corporate information." Sweet!

It's important to note that Chairman Cox has not yet made an official ruling as to whether blog-based disclosure fulfilled the requirements of Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure), but the winds are clearly blowing in the right direction. It's amazing that a government entity is ahead of the times, for a change. Only about 30 companies from among the FORTUNE 500 now maintain official blogs. Some of the issues that have delayed their entry into the blogosphere no doubt stemmed from concerns about the SEC's disclosure rules. Perhaps Chairman Cox's comment on Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz's blog will spur ever-greater numbers of heavy-hitters to consider the benefits of direct interaction with their stakeholders.

Come on in, the water's fine!

Hat-tips: Chris Heuer of Social Media Club has a great analysis of this event, and I owe a hat-tip as well to Kevin Dugan, whose post first alerted me to this news.

Tags: social+media, blogs, kevin+dugan, chris+heuer, sec, jonathan+schwartz, christoper+cox