I’m guessing that somehow the whole world missed my last post on this. That’s understandable, considering that less than .004% of the world’s population read my blog.
Stowe Boyd is effectively ripping Marc Canter a new one. I talked about Marc’s idea a few days ago.
Stowe goes so far as to say that Marc is a heretic and is completely on his own:
The lines seem to be pretty clearly drawn, On one side, those that contend that “pay-for-ink” is bad, because it will pollute the trust and athenticity that bloggers live by. This camp includes Jason Calcanis, David Weinberger, J Luster, and me. On the other, Marc is pretty much on his own.
Sorry guys, but no, Marc is not on his own.
The problem with all of this is that the idea isn’t new. So, it’s fair enough that Stowe might not be aware of people who are in favour of something very much like this. Here are just a few:
Wayne Hurlbert
Vinnie Garcia
Daily Candy
Stefan Geens
Blog Weblog
Just these few blogs, combined with Ensight, serve up roughly 1,200,000 pageviews a month.
Update: An astute reader notes that there are quite a few more people in favour of this, including:
Paul Scrivens
Derek Featherstone
So, total pageviews per month represented is now approaching 2,000,000.
Those are just the ones I could nail off the “Sponsored Posts” “blog” search on Google.
Now, there are obviously companies allowing just this type of service, including:
Then, of course, there is the fact that quite a few blogs already do sponsored post type things:
Fleshbot’s Advertorials
Fark’s paid posts
And the list really does go on and on.
Again, this idea isn’t new. What is, is that Marc is establishing a longer term relationship between bloggers and a single company (or set of companies). That bloggers have to blog about the company. It doesn’t have to be positive. It can be anything.
What if, for instance, the company was Microsoft? You could blog about their products, recent security vulnerabilities, posts at Slashdot, how to get a job there…
Okay, I’m sure it’s not that open ended (it’s probably a specific product group) but the reality is that if you’re expected to blog on a semi-regular basis for 3 months, there needs to be more than a “w00t this product rocks” type of discussion that happens and I’d think Marc and the company would expect that.
Getting back to Stowe. Stowe, grow up. Every other communications medium has “Advertorials” and that is all Marc is proposing. A clearly marked, paid, “in voice” set of posts from regular old bloggers like you and me. Feel free to not want to do it. But feel free to get a verbal flogging whenever you stick your neck out and say things like “Marc is pretty much on his own”.
Give. Me. A. Break.
December 7th, 2004 at 1:09 am
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October 28th, 2004 at 7:46 am
Add another one (and you should probably look up more terms than “sponsored posts”, like “sponsored entries”):
Paul Scrivens – Big Money Tips
There are a few others in that search (about 20, but you and I are in there as well so subtract a couple from your current total).
October 28th, 2004 at 7:55 am
Cool, updated Vinnie.
October 28th, 2004 at 10:13 am
I think the big reason everyone is erupting about this is that Marc’s description of his idea is very vague and everyone leaps to the conclusion that it’s just as “evil” as they fear.
The fact is, we don’t know exactly what he’s planning:
1. A personal blog that acts like honest opinion but is really paid to say certain things? (evil.)
2. A company sponsored PR blog about the company with an independent voice? (not evil. It’s what Scoble does, right?)
3. A personal blog with occasional advertorials? (not evil, if they’re labeled as such)
Frankly, maybe I’m dim, but I didn’t understand which (if any) of these Marc is planning. So maybe we should wait until it actually appears before we attack it.
My opinion is simply this: if we know it’s an advertisement, it’s OK, whether it’s an occasional thing or an entire weblog of nonstop advertisement. If an advertisement tries to masquerade as something else–journalism, or personal opinion, or potato salad–it’s ethically questionable, and more importantly, it won’t work. Just ask all of the companies that have started fake blogs to create “buzz” and have been called on it.
October 28th, 2004 at 10:21 am
Based on reading Marc’s posts, it really sounds like he’s paying existing bloggers to blog on their blogs and requiring them to display that it is obviously an ad.
To me, this sounds like #3.
October 28th, 2004 at 10:23 am
Having read Marc’s post again, it sounds like he’s talking about paying a group of existing bloggers to talk about a product in clearly-marked advertorials.
I don’t really see a problem with that. I wouldn’t do it myself–I have my own agenda and products to push with my weblog–but if it’s clearly labeled, what’s the big deal?
I apparently need to get over this cold before I do any more thinking, or posting, about this.
October 28th, 2004 at 10:24 am
on preview, what Jeremy said.