Blogs - useful, or just more noise you need to deal with ?

Here's some questions for you...

1. Why do you read blogs, and more specifically, why do you read Microsoft blogs ?
2. Has your impression of Microsoft as a company changed from reading blogs and viewing MSDN Channel 9 or the video podcasts from MEDC/TechEd content ? 
3. Should we (Microsoft bloggers) translate the content we produce on the blog into technical white papers or support knowledge base articles rather than posting to the blog ?
4. Have you seen Microsoft make product design decisions based on feedback in the community/blogs ?
5. How about bug fixes, have you seen any bug fixes, or power toys created directly from your community/blog feedback ?

I'm interested to know whether this is a useful way for Microsoft to share information with you, our customers...

- Mike