Tom Raftery interviewed Scoble recently and started with the standard question everyone (everyone) asks him. "What do you tell companies when they ask you why they should blog?" He replied, "One word. Google."
Then he elaborated on a meeting he had not long ago with, I believe, Monster Cable, who sought his advice on why their company didn't come up when searched for audio on Google (or terms appropriate to their business), even though they are one of the leaders in the field. It was a great analogy, demonstrating the power of linking to blogs and generating conversations. "Who do you think people are going to link to?" Scoble asks this company. "Are they going to link to some static web page that passed through committee before it was published or are they going to link to an original idea by an individual on a blog?"
Powerful analogy.