andrewteman.org

In case you have a life, and haven’t been sitting inside this holiday weekend with your finger on the pulse of the “blogosphere” (gag), you might have missed the release of PayPerPost.com. Already creating great buzz controversy, PPP basically is a middle man/site designed to bring advertisers to bloggers, who are willing to plug a product or service, in exchange for a few bucks. Now not surprisingly, hardcore blogtards like Michael Arrington are already getting their panties 2.0 all bunched over this, and screaming bloody murder:

Is this a bad joke designed to torpedo the blogosphere’s credibility in general? It doesn’t appear to be. If we’re all trying to negotiate a space between Hollywood and mainstream journalism, this is taking things way too far towards the most insipid parts of Hollywood.

I think it is important to note here, that this is the same Michael Arrington, of TechCrunch.com, that has been repeatedly been accused of trumping up new media companies on his blog, some of which he supposedly has a monetary interest in. Now I can’t personally substantiate this, and I don’t know if it is true, but certainly it would be head imploding irony if it was.

ANYWAYS…here’s the deal. Bloggers, both big and small, have been getting the hookup for a while now in exchange for talking favorably about certain products. The reputable ones point out the relationship they have with the advertiser when posting the praise, and the scummy ones just take the cash/product and do their duty. The REALLY ballsy ones take the cash or product and then flip on the advertiser and slam the product…which is always entertaining, and something that I would actually argue does more for product development than blind praise will ever do. Point being, this concept isn’t new, and I’m not totally clear why everyone is jumping all over PPP as being the beginning of the blog-pocolypse (you can use that one), when this is a smart move to actually create a marketplace where this can be done at least MORE transparently than it was already being done.

Personally, I have received tickets in exchange for promoting events, and am a BzzAgent, and am completely open to this sort of advertising, provided that there is disclosure on the end of the blogger, and on the end of the advertiser. I am open to it as a blogger, on one condition, and that is that I will ONLY positively plug things for compensation that I genuinely like, own, use, or believe in. So I can absolutely be bought, and if you want me to talk up things like T-Mobile, Subaru, Sony Cameras, beer, and other things that I really do dig, send me an email and make me an offer. I’ll be happy to consider it.

Semi-Related
There has also been a bit controversy of late over astroturfing on blogs, where marketers and marketing agencies, try and artificially seed a grassroots viral campaign, in hopes that by sending some agency created content (usually offbeat or funny videos) to some key blogs, that these blogs will post the content, and the product makes its way around the internet at lightening speed, for little or no advertising cost (typically agencies don’t compensate the bloggers to post this content). Huffington Post is knee deep in it, and I even got a really lame email from Tribal DDB last week, pushing a lame video for a lame liquor…so this shop has sailed folks. Advertisers are onto us nerds and our weakness for free stuff. So kudos to companies like PayToPost for making it easier for me to get p-a-i-d.