On the sidebar of his new blog, Guy Kawasaki has a section listing the companies he’s invested in — a section he titles, with typical Guy panache, “Alignment of Interest.”

Get this, on his personal blog he writes about & pimps companies he believes enough in to put his money & time into. Sounds reasonable, right? Especially since he’s clearly noted his involvement. Really, would you think much of FilmLoop if one of the VCs backing it never piped up and talked about why he is a fan of the company?

This article in today’s WSJ would have you believe that advisory board members and execs shouldn’t be blogging about the companies they are involved in. Seems that advisors to FON were stoked about funding the company received over the weekend, and blogged about it when given the ok by the CEO. Makes sense, right? Not to the Journal, which sees the whole thing as a conspiracy to generate positive coverage from folks on the take.

Did the people blogging disclose that they were advisors? Yep.

Sounds much more like an alignment of interest to me, then. Scoble highlights the need to disclose, and we completely agree. Be upfront & transparent with your readers. Otherwise, as Mike Manuel points out, you’ll lose your place as a trusted resource. But, if Mike Arrington does as Nick Carr suggests and only blogs about things he has no involvement, it’ll make him much less interesting. I read Mike because he’s got his hands in everything. Because people tell him things. Those things make his site valuable.

This illusion of independence is a holdover of mass media think. Blogs are personalized communication, even when situated within a corporate environment. They are useful and informative because of the unique bias (read POV) they can deliver. By all means, say who you are and why you’re here chatting with us, but don’t hold back when you don’t have to. There are about 20 million other blogs I could be reading that might actually be interesting.

Technorati Tags: david weinberger, FON, guy kawasaki, mikearrington, robert scoble