If ever you've wondered whether weblogs were considered important by enterprise content users your answer comes from LexisNexis, which announced the availability of weblogs via their online news and business information services. The weblogs are sourced from the Newstex Content on Demand service, which licenses content from leading news feeds and weblogs and provides a number of add-value services such as adding metadata and references to company ticker symbols, formatting, custom feeds and segmenting content for specific market segments and geographic sectors.

Specific to the LexisNexis integration Newstex added a number of weblogs that were in demand from their enterprise users - including our own ContentBlogger(TM) news feed. The LexisNexis announcement notes that enterprises are keen to be on top of key opinion influencers in the marketplace, which now includes many influential weblogs that drive both consumer and business opinions. The arguments from last year as to whether weblogs are valid journalism are now relatively moot. Whether they are journalism or not, weblogs are read widely and have the ability to move minds and markets as much as any mainstream media outlet in many circles.

Given the proven worth of mixing weblogs and mainstream news in Web portals such as Topix this ground-breaking move by a major aggregator is not likely to be the last but it is a very significant first. When serving enterprise clients that are increasingly agnostic about how they source their content enterprise aggregators have little choice but to make available the widest array of sources that their audiences consider to be quality content. Leveraging the efficient centralized capabilities of Newstex to incorporate weblogs into their infrastructure allows LexisNexis to focus on their clients rather than on a myriad of small publishers with their own peculiar requirements.

Compliance-conscious companies are also likely to find this solution offered by Newstex via LexisNexis appealing, as its weblog licensing eliminates any issues about usage rights that may otherwise crop up unexpectedly (have we forgotten already the successful suit against Legg Mason brought by a small-scale newsletter publisher?). Weblogs will continue to gain their popularity and influence via direct Web access but being able to access then via LexisNexis will be a huge plus for enterprises trying to keep abreast of market opinion via their business information and intelligence tools.