PayPal shows banks how to blog

Billed as the official place for all things PayPal, the online payments pioneer has opened a corporate blog with the following mission statement: "We created The PayPal Blog as a forum for PayPal employees to engage with you -- to connect you with the leaders of our company and capture their insights and opinions. Most importantly, we want to hear your thoughts."

The first three posts are from Larry Friedberg, senior manager of brand marketing and security, Stephanie Tilenius, vice president of PayPal Merchant Services, and Rajiv Dutta, the president of PayPal.

The posts are nicely pitched, with a breezy, informal tone that gives a friendly 'we're here to help' gloss to the corporate brand.

In an introductory posting, Dutta sets out PayPal's objectives for the new blog: "We hope this will help you to get to know our employees, the initiatives within our company, and provide a forum for discussion on e-commerce and payments.

"Most importantly, we want your feedback. If you like our point of view, let us know. And if you don’t, please tell us why."

Somehow, I can't imagine the top brass of the old school banks ever appearing so approachable online.

PayPal has comprehensively outpaced the traditional banking establishment in the online payments space, is it about to do the same in the blogosphere?