PayPerPost, evil or just plain stupid?
In its last issue, BusinessWeek Magazine carries an article named Polluting The Blogosphere which announces — and heavily criticizes — a new ’service’ offered to bloggers, PayPerPost. The system is easy. As a blogger, you open an account with this service. And you’ll get paid for mentioning their customers in your posts. But there is a catch: you don’t have to write that you are getting paid for this. Is this honest? Not really. Would you lose your credibility for a couple of bucks? I doubt, but read more…
Here are two short paragraphs from the BusinessWeek article.
Ted Murphy, who founded a Tampa-based interactive ad agency called MindComet, also runs a side business that pays bloggers to write nice things about corporate sponsors — without unduly worrying about whether or not bloggers disclose these arrangements to readers. (A scan of relevant blog searches strongly suggests that, often, they don’t.)
Murphy is launching PayPerPost.com, which will automate such hookups between advertisers and bloggers and thus codify a new frontier of product placement. Advertisers pay to post details about their “opportunity,” specifying, among other things, how they want bloggers to write about, say, a new shoe, if they want photos to be included, and whether they’ll pay only for positive mentions. Bloggers who abide by the rules get paid; heavily trafficked blogs may command premium rates.
Since Friday, the arrival of this new service was very heavily commented — and widely condemned — by the blogosphere. Here is a comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick, “PayPerPost.com offers to sell your soul” (TechCrunch, June 30, 2006).
There does not appear to be any requirement that the payment for coverage be disclosed. There is a requirement that PayPerPost.com must approve your post before you are paid. Wow.
In “How to kill blogs,” Rafe Needleman, from CNET News.com, concurs.
This is a bad, bad, bad thing. It’s hard enough for bloggers and professional journalists to maintain their integrity as it is. Even an unsubstantiated rumor of impropriety can destroy a writer. And PayPerPost casts a pall of doubt over everybody.
PayPerPost doesn’t disclose how much it’s going to pay bloggers to write — advertise? — about products. But I bet it will be peanuts. So will you use such a service to make some quick bucks and destroy your credibility? I won’t.
Source: Jon Fine, BusinessWeek Magazine, July 10, 2006 issue; and other references
July 5th, 2006 at 157
I seriously doubt PayPerPost is going to be the downfall of the blogosphere any more than Adsense or BlogAds or any other kind of blog advertising. My guess is the bloggers who could actually create the biggest buzz for the advertisers offering PPP “opportunities” won’t be interested in the money on offer — currently $5 to $10 per post. And the people (like myself) who are willing to blog for those amounts won’t be providing enough value to the advertisers for it to be worth it. Most likely, it’ll end up a race to the bottom to see how much buzz can be created by people who’ll be paid pennies to write rubbish about useless products. But I hope I’m wrong.