For investor and public relations pros, individual and institutional investors, industry watcher, and others...but it could be a leap back for some of us too.
Jonathan Schwartz is the CEO of Sun Microsystems, who along with his general counsel are certainly bloggers of note.
Jonathan's most recent post entitled "One Small Step for the Blogosphere" reveals a formal letter sent to SEC Commissioner Christopher Cox, which requests a clarification RegFD which currently defines the legal ways in which a public company must make material information available for public access (i.e. ensuring everyone in the public has access to material information at the same time.)
Jonathan's request aims to have corporate blogs recognized as a legal mechanism for providing "non-exclusionary distribution of the information to the public," something they currently are not. I have no doubt that this will get a fair hearing and that at some point in the future the SEC will recognize that self-publishing Web sites that are well-established as the voice of a corporation can be considered compliant with RegFD for material information. I think this is generally a good thing, as a blog can better articulate company vision than a press release, and in a voice that is comparable to a conference call but with better accessibility in many ways.
It will be interesting to watch how the tool develops at that point and what sort of voice earnings reports end up taking. It is a looming challenge and terrific opportunity for us corporate communications types.
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