October 10, 2007
Why paid blog posts will Kill the Blogosphere.
As a long time veteran in the advertising & marketing world you become more and more aware of sneaky forms of hidden advertising. Some, if done correctly are actually a value add to the users experience and others are just down -right malevolent and borderline ethical. Let’s take a look at one example in the entertainment media news world. The TV show Entertainment tonight is pretty much a 30 min advertisement with barely any content that hasn’t been paid for. To the untrained eye you might not even notice that almost everything is fact an advert. An interview with 2 of the hottest actors with their new movie that is coming out, a behind the scene look at a new fall show, the trendiest restaurant in Hollywood, the coolest new accessory for your outfit. All paid placements. Some of it is a bit obnoxious, but most of it is relevant to the show so as a viewer you usually don’t even notice or mind.
Occasionally when I’m reading a feature article in a magazine about a new product or company, I’ll actually flip over to the back to see if they have bought the back cover. Fortune magazine is notorious for doing big features on companies that also advertises in the magazine.
Now let’s take a look at the guys on the block in the blog world that are taking full aim at credibility and potentially blowing it right out of the water:
Smorty: Don’t just ask bloggers to write paid content, but ask the bloggers to sign up more Smorty users by the way of an affiliate program J
Blogvertise: Throw in a cool picture of the offending bloggers to make it look facebook’ish and perhaps a little less slimy? (Not one, but 3 links to the advertiser is required)
PayPerPost : The king of the hill, the one company that seems to always take the heat when this topic comes up and rightly so. I think they may even relish in it. (The one thing these guys have changed over time is making disclosure required.)
Blogs were the original pioneers of one person’s true voice and un-biased opinions on a product, service or corporation. It was the little guy who could be heard in a sea of millions and make a direct impact on the giants. Paying the one voice, causes the listeners to hear a little boy cry wolf…
Related posts:
Tivo kills their PayPerPost campaign
PayPerPost launches random new service
October 17th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Most of the Paid Per Posts are downright horrible too. You can see that little if any real thought has put into them other than ‘what are some great buzz words I can use?’ Blah… I wouldn’t advertise anything I don’t personally use or strongly believe in.
Unless I got a whole boatload of cash, of course. Everyone has a price, mine is somewhere around a hundred grand. hehehe
October 20th, 2007 at 9:34 am
I don’t think it will kill the blogosphere. Constatnly writing a poorly written review might kill the owners blog. :-)
I write reviews on my website the majority are personal reviews I’ve picked up on my own. I enjoy sharing with my readers. Occasionally I’ll write a paid review if I like the service offered.
I mainly do Sponsored Reviews I have seven days to complete the review and it usually takes me the entire time. I take my time writing my reviews and they are never short. I occasionally will write for pay Per Post but that is only if I have used the product or service before. They don’t give me enough time to research the product. They only give six hours.
The majority of my reviews appear on the first page in search engines. I’ve even picked up readers who have surfed onto my website because of the review I wrote. They initially came for the review but they ended up staying because they liked my website. :-)
January 28th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I don’t think this is such a huge worry. What will kill the blogosphere is poor content. Paid posts aren’t automatically uninteresting because someone paid the blogger to post them. In fact, these posts are what the blogger makes of them.
So really the concern here should be how bloggers are handling the wordsmithing of these posts. Are bloggers make the most of a paid opportunity by making the content interesting and relevant, or are they just producing garbage because they can?
Bloggers are what make or break the blogosphere…not posts.