Back in the day, my technology clients used to like having open houses when they moved in to new facilities. They'd host elaborate and expensive briefings in New York for incremental new product launches. They'd announce their new web sites in news releases wired nationally. I thought all of that had gone the way of saddle shoes, but I still see new website news releases from time to time. Today was one of those times.

Today I came across this news release over Business Wire from Reed Construction Data. Ordinarily I wouldn't have paid any attention but it came to my desktop from a Google search using the term "social media." Curious to see if yet another major organization had finally figured out the social media magic, I drilled down. The release says: Future phases will include streamlined access to Reed's subscription services, the ability to interact with social media features and more. And that eventually it will host Communities featuring editorial content and blogs on construction industry topics.

So, with low expectations but a high curiosity about whether or not I would find any evidence of future social media functions in the making, I went to the new website, and you can, too, via this link.

The website is nice, I guess, but I don't know anything about websites. Most, not all, look more or less identical to me. I do know they cost a fortune, take forever, can't be changed or updated easily, and are a routine pain point on every marketing person's agenda because at least someone somewhere is complaining about the website all the time for one good or bad reason or another. They hate the color; the layout stinks; the format is all wrong, blah blah blah.

But then I noticed a link to a blog on this new site. Scroll down to near the bottom and on the left, in a red banner thing you'll see "Reed Blogs." So I went there... and you can, too. That link takes you to a blog called Notes from Jim Haughey. He is Reed Contrustion Data's Chief Economist.

Now maybe an economist isn't you're idea of a person who should top your A-list of cocktail party invitees, but I happen to find them pretty interesting people, especially if you get a chance to talk to them. Unfortunately, in this case, this Reed blog is a Read bog, not a write, talk, respond, comment, intereact, share, debate or otherwise participate blog. That's too bad.

In fairness, Reed is saying the good stuff will come later. And, The Notes from Jim Haughey blog meets the baseline technical definition of a blog. But as Wikipedia notes, and every blogger knows: A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.

On the blog we're talking about here, there's no way to leave a comment. Mr. Haughey links to nothing in any of the six posts I read on page one of one. So if you or I think Mr. Haughey is right or wrong about something, or we want to further the conversation, we're back talking to ourselves the way we used to when newspapers were popular and we took issue with some content.

The question here is whether or not Reed Construction Data gets it and is planning to evolve soon to more savvy social media applications, or this is actually close to what they think rises to the standard? Reed Construction Data is a division of Reed Business Information which is a division of the Reed Elsevier Group PLC which calls itself 'the world leading publisher and information provider.' If publishing is in your DNA, can you adapt to the conversational world?

I don't know the answer to that... yet. But for now, I'd love to hear from people who know more about this new site, and from others with viewpoints about publishing's adaptation to social media. Happily, on this blog, you can leave a comment.

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