"Weblog," was first coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997, and named two years later, as "blog," by Peter Merholz. The form led the way for corporations, individuals and organizations to become content creators and initiated the era of consumer generated media.

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In such a crowded online world, one point of differentiation a company can make is to be recognized as a thought leader. Consumers are generally more attracted to brands that they perceive as leaders in their field and a resource for their needs and the simplest way in which to communicate this is through blogging. The problem is, the people needed to be the face of a company’s online presence, the organizations’ leaders, are often the very same people that have absolutely no time to do that sort of thing. Fortunately for them, the web has generated tons of tools to help with just that problem.

Here are three of them:

1. WordPress

WordPress is arguably the de facto blogging platform for prominent bloggers. It is also increasingly becoming a favorite engine for corporate websites by web designers. Its robust customizability, free price tag, and expandability through widgets and plug-ins make it a leader in content management systems.

Still, your average thought leader in a company does not have the time or resources to navigate WordPress’ technical back-end. But if one’s IT can set up the right configuration for the blog, then  a thought leader, would need to do no more than send an email to post a blog. Simply put, if they have time to send emails, then they have time to blog.

2. Tumblr

For those of us old timers who remember the state of blogging way back in the salad days of 2007, we all believed that Tumblr would be just as useless and boring as Twitter. It was yet another micro blog with seemingly very little purpose. While Twitter eventually proved us skeptics wrong, Tumblr has remained a dark horse in the blogging world, trapped somewhere in between a micro-blog and a regular blog.

The site has taken on so many features that it is a bright answer to those that find either blogging or Twittering too limited. For our time-starved thought leaders, Tumblr is an incredibly simple and adaptable platform on which to blog. Firstly, one can blog by sending not only an email, but a text message. Secondly, if one does want to blog from the site itself, there is no technical back end — only a place in which to type, upload photos, or share links.

Another very useful component of Tumblr for thought leaders, is the ability to post from a browser, while on a particular web page.  As such, while thought leaders read the news,  all they need to do to comment on the article they just read ,is hit the Tumblr button and — and voila! A blog post!

Tumblr also tweets blogs, so one doesn’t have to get involved with that other micro-blogger and waste even more time. It is a powerful blogging tool for many more reasons, but a bottom line for thought leaders is that it is simple and accessible.

3. Posterous

Posterous has garnered a great deal of attention lately and is an up and coming contender to the legacy blogging applications of so many dozens of months ago (Tumblr and WordPress). Like its contemporaries, Posterous allows one to post blogs simply by sending an email. Yet Posterous takes it to a whole new level.

A single email that you send can update all of your social networks automatically, including Facebook, Twitter and even Tumblr and WordPress. You can also pick and choose what particular social network gets updated by sending an email to a particular address. To make things even easier, there is a browser button that allows you to do the same exact thing.

Posterous also has something that the others don’t have. It can intelligently recognize multi-media you are sending in your email and post it correctly. If it is a picture, it is posted as an image and then cross-posted to Flickr. If it is a video or a link to a video, it embeds it for you. This means that without ever having to leave Outlook you can post a beautifully designed blog complete with image slideshows and videos simply by hitting “send.”

So for even your most time-strapped thought leader, blogging can be easily incorporated into a daily regimen. Using browser buttons to share and comment on articles that one is already reading, and then sending emails off to be automatically posted and shared on various social media sites, can remove many of the hurdles that get in the way of creating a resourceful point of differentiation.

Last week a Digital Trenches discussion noted the rising trend in interest surrounding daddy bloggers. But in face of this week’s eMarketer published report, mommies still have that edge with marketers.  And for good reason. According to the report, 68% of new mothers began using “mom-centric social media” after having children, and 33% increased their use of social media in general. Couple that with the current estimate that mothers control 80% of household spending, then it becomes clear why marketers prefer Moms. Senior eMarketer analyst Jeffrey Grau commented that moms come together to “share information about product deals” – a valuable bonus to marketers.

Is the value of mommy bloggers in their buying power? Or is it more about their networking power? The evidence is in what marketers approach mommy bloggers for: endorsements. If their value is really buying power, then simply advertising on a “mom-centric” social network like BabyCenter or Circle of Moms would likely get the job done. While that may be happening, the activity getting the most attention in 2009 by, not only the media, but the FTC, was product reviews.

One can easily conclude then that the value of mommy bloggers is their ability to influence other moms and to leverage their buying power. If that is true, then a mommy blogging is something akin to consumer journalism and marketers would be wise to take note.

Here are five ways marketers can earn a mommy journalist’s respect for a highly valued third party endorsement:

1. Construct meaningful, personalized and targeted pitches about products that clearly appeal to the blogger.
2. Don’t expect a positive review, but an honest one, and do not try to tell the mommy journalist what to write.
3. When following up, be respectful of time and do not spam with email or voicemail messages.
4. Read the blog before pitching so that there is a thorough understanding of what they do or do not write about.
5. Thanking a mommy blogger for writing about the product can build a long-term professional relationship down the road.

Mommy bloggers have an invested interest in their readers and approaching them with a journalistic respect will show that marketers truly understand the value of a mom.

Mommy bloggers certainly captured a lot of attention in 2009. This often elusive, yet highly influential network of moms that took to social media with flagpoles, megaphones, and important insights on parenting, was all the rage in the media. Headline after headline we saw that these parental bloggers were so influential, they began accomplishing the “Holy Grail” of social media: churning a profit. If advertising was not enough, companies began buying reviews from mommy influencers to the point where the FTC had to step in and wag a finger, a story we weighed in on in our Strategy and Musings blog last June.

But if 2009 was the mommy blogger year, 2010 is already being penned as the “year of the daddy blogger” by an expert, a daddy blogger, a social media marketer, and a poll (currently resulting in 65% favorable to the idea). We even discussed the rising trend in Strategy and Musings last August in response to Sony’s DigiDad project.

Certainly daddy bloggers are on the rise and so are networks that are supporting them. They have taken to Twitter with their stories on parenthood and are already involving brands in their publications. Like the moms, each of them target a particular interest, but with a focus on parenthood, as a theme.

Here are a few:

The Dad List: http://www.thedadlist.com/

Natural Papa: http://naturalpapa.com/

Daddy Is Tired: http://www.daddyistired.com/

Mocha Dad: http://www.mochadad.com

DaddyGotCustody: http://daddygotcustody.com/

Playground Dad: http://playgrounddad.com/

LookyDaddy:  http://www.lookydaddy.com/

DadGoneMad: http://www.dadgonemad.com/

CynicalDad: http://www.cynicaldad.com/

LaidOffDad: http://laidoffdad.typepad.com/

DadCentric: http://www.dadcentric.com/

DadLogic:  http://dadlogic.net

This new trend of blogging begs the question, is this actually a new trend? And if so, is there a discernable difference between mommy and daddy bloggers apart from gender? Certainly topics will vary between the two types of blogs, but ultimately they are parenthood blogs and so, therefore, will appeal to the same demographics with the same marketing tactics. Parents read these blogs to participate in conversations about parenthood and to seek peer-oriented advice on products parents need. From a marketing perspective, the objectives and tactics will remain the same, whether or not the parent is a mommy or daddy.

The media is already making noises about  the next big trend and companies are not far behind in trying to tap this rising market. There is even talk of a daddy blogger convention. Regardless of whether that will happen, marketers will be trying to get a piece of the pie. Just follow any of the new daddy bloggers, and it will be obvious that an influencer can come out of anywhere — dads or moms, and that what matters most is the transparency in these types of consumer engagements.

Maybe 2011 will be the year of the Kiddy Blogger.