Stowe Boyd looks at PayPerPost, where bloggers post reviews about products in return for payment. This in itself is not wrong. What is wrong is that the posts are heavily reviewed and can be denied, obviously only glowing reviews are going to be accepted. The other problem is that bloggers are not disclosing they were paid to write the review.
As Stowe says so well, "... [it] is at best a questionable edge of the blogosphere, and at the worst, a cancer that could erode trust and reputation for all that it touches."
What we need are moles who report the advertisers are on PayPerPost in blogs posts, so searches would, hopefully, disclose the fact that all those glowing review are, in fact, paid.
Diane: you might want to try the service before getting important parts wrong -- in full view of your audience no less. Your statement "What is wrong is that the posts are heavily reviewed and can be denied, obviously only glowing reviews are going to be accepted." is just wrong. In fact, the example Stowe presented shows a perfect example of "tone = neutral" which allows bloggers to go negative, positive or neutral -- and get paid regardless. There is also no extra payment for click-thrus (ala AdSense) so there is no incentive to deceive.
In fact, there is an ad opp right now that asks for your opinion on PPP, paying for any tone. You might want to try it and then share whether you, as the blogger, were in control of picking opps that fit you and your audience. The resulting research results you could share with your audience would be a valid/valuable contribution to the blogosphere...
Posted by: Dan... | October 5, 2006 11:17 AM | Permalink to Comment