Creating Product Buzz.(The Technologist)

Plug "Shinkansen N700" into a search engine and back come scores of photos and comments about the smooth ride, dizzying speed and comfortable work areas of Japan's newest bullet train. The attention is not a coincidence. It's the result of a publicity campaign by Central Japan Railway Co. targeted at the blogosphere. This summer, the railway invited a dozen bloggers to a press preview, which included a first-class ride from Tokyo to Osaka. Most of the bloggers returned the favor by talking up the train and giving the railway an increasingly important type of publicity. "Their blogs are so precise, even more so than our own site, and are very interesting," says Hiroshi Shigeta, a railway spokesman. Ridership for the N700 model, which runs across the country, is up 12 percent over last year, compared with 5 percent overall, which Shigeta attributes in part to the attention of bloggers.

Japanese firms that make automobiles, high-tech gadgets, game software and beauty products have begun to reach out to bloggers in the hope that they'll promote products and create online buzz. The recognition by commercial firms is just another sign that Japan is becoming a nation of bloggers. Japanese language blogs account for 37 percent of the entire blogosphere, a tad higher than the total blogs in English, according to Technorati. "Personal blogs can be the most powerful media" since it can convey credibility, says Tetsuya Honda, a marketing consultant who runs BlueCurrent Japan. A recent study by Nikkei Research of Tokyo shows that nearly 40 percent of blog readers say they have bought at least one product after reading about it on a blog.

The pioneer in this practice is Nissan Motor. Last year it invited about 100 popular bloggers to its head office for the launch of its new car, Skyline. (A Google search on the event turned up nearly 14,000 Web pages, in addition to the company's official blog.) ...