OPEN

I still asked the question a lot: can you name some good corporate blogging case studies?

The question feels a bit stale these days. Like blogging is all you need.

One company I’ve always admired is Microsoft Xbox. Not the bits that Hugh MacLeod or latterly Robert Scoble have been blogging ambassadors for, but the Miscrosofty bit that is meshed in with the most complex, rich and fast-moving bit of the social media world online: gamers.

I first tripped across the work of the Xbox Live “director of programming” Major Nelson a couple of years ago when I was conducting an early “cartography and anthropology” expedition into gamer networks for a client.

Now a profile of the Major by Reuters paints a picture not of a super-active corporate blogger but someone who “runs a mini-empire of Xbox-related media: blogs, podcasts, text messaging and social networking sites that potentially reach some 8 million users in what could be called Xbox Nation.”

This is someone who is utterly committed to his subject and to his community:

He estimates he gets 500 e-mails every day, and last year he posted 1,550 times on Web messaging service Twitter to distribute news and information as fast as it comes in. But that does not mean he is short on facts or data. His year-end podcast, for instance, ran three hours.

Whatever your line of work, I recommend checking out the way that Xbox – not just through Major Nelson – has engaged with its online networks. It remains one of the most interesting and continually evolving case studies in how to understand, be useful and be live in your networks.