Ann,

Thank you for the dose of ethics. When I worked in magazines, we constantly danced a two-step between what is advertising and what is content free of influence. My decision was to mark anything influenced by advertisers as advertising. Doing so cost us money but I slept well at night.

I've spent nearly three years blogging. More than just the work that it's taken to build credibility is having the patience necessary to organically become part of a community. It hasn't happened overnight. Once you start down the path proposed by PayPerPost, it's difficult to rescue--maintain, even--that hard-won credibility. What else do each of us have, other than our names and reputations?

ann, great post. it's a couple of days that you look very aggressive in your posts but absolutely right in both of them. who's next?

I wouldn't mind it if we got to the point where companies were able to search blogs and buy the rights to use posts in its marketing materials, but it's important for objective content to remain objective in reality and appearance. However, I don't think Semantic Web has gotten to the point where searching for and retrieving the right content consistently is simple enough to create an entire marketing discipline out of it.

On the other hand, if a blogger is being paid - directly or indirectly - for writing something, as long as they disclose it up front, I think people will understand that they need to take it with a grain of salt. We see this a lot with "full disclosure" statements made by bloggers.

Ann Handley- Are you repressing my most recent post just so I won't steal your thunder? You are SO competitive!

Ok, I'll grow up and be serious now...

Yes, our "word" and our names are all that we have and we have all struggled and fought so hard to get it. I've battled the attitudes of "silly blogger" mindsets or the no credibility attitudes. Now I have established something that borders on a credible reputation. If I started accepting cash for content, I'd likely damage that hard work. I think full disclosure is great, but it still cast a shadow of doubt over the other content on a blog.

It'd be great to get paid to blog, but I think that should come from paid advertisers instead of the PayPerPost model... but then again... I could use the money. (Ann refuses to pay me!)

Thanks for the discussion, all.

I agree with you, Tim.... once you go down that road, the path becomes a slippery slope fairly quickly. I'd like to get rich by blogging too...but this is NOT the path to walk.

And Cam, I see a huge difference between an occassional disclosure ("FluffyKittyWhiskers is a client of mine..." or "I own stock in the Furrminator...") and PayPerPost. One is being upfront about the nature of a relationship, however indirect, and the other is a direct payment model, with PPP "approving" your post. (It still hurts to write that...) The permission piece is a huge differentiator -- maybe the biggest, in my mind.

To be clear, I am 100% against "pay-per-post." But i think we have to recognize this as just another example of the tricky intersection between human nature, the Web, and commmerce. Just as there are lowlifes who found a way to muck up e-mail with spam, and lowlifes who found a way to muck up online advertising with link farms and click fraud, now we have this infiltration of blogs. Anything to make a nickel.

I wish everyone was a saint, but with 10s of millions of blogs out there, the best that can be said is "reader emptor!" (or is that "caveat reader!" ???)

Hi Ann:

Thanks for the comments on the interview. I thought it interesting that the rep appeared to sidestep most of the important questions. I probably would have pressed the issues on a couple questions, especially the credibility stuff, but the exhibit hall floor was neither the time nor the place. And besides, the PPP booth lady was actually kinda nice and polite.

Still, I think the PPP proposition presents a great deal of opportunity for harm.

Thanks again for the link and the kind words.

This has to be one of the more questionnable business models that vc's have backed. It shows this web 2.0 concept (user generated content) has gone just a tad over the edge.

Ann,

I think Allen and you are right about this. Especially as it relates to those of us discussing serious issues. Pay for content has been and remains a bad idea, if we want to be trusted.

Ann,

It seems to me that the underlying issues are transparency and full disclosure. After all, a corporate blog is in essence a "paid" spokesperson for the company. But, we know that upfront, so we can opt to filter the content in our own heads if we feel it's called for.

What blogs and all the other tranparency enhancers that consumers have discovered, developed or demanded have in common is that the content is not "prettied up." Or if it is (as in a corporate site, potentially) we know about it.

Pay for content is not a "someday it might happen." It's here. So while we can all agree that WE won't do it and we wish no one did it -- clearly others are and will continue. So, full disclosure becomes the fall back position, in my opinion. How you'd regulate that, I have no idea. But, if bloggers were expected to disclose any financial gain that is tied to the post, at readers would not be left feeling tricked.

Then readers can apply their own filters to the content and the author.

Just my 2 cents.

best,

Drew

Drew -- Disclosure would certainly help make the program more palatable, as would the advertiser's inability to approve a post. But in my mind, only marginally more palatable. The recently launched ReviewMe purports to offers those options, but I still think it crosses the line.

I agree with you Ann. I listened and read your links and if such a program is popular to screen Blogs then pay if it gets approved, they should start a new idea apart from Blogs and name it "Blash"
for "BlogCash ". Silly but a thought.

There's only a handful of people on the web that make it challenging at times but I keep that in mind and remember that 80% want things to be right.
Kathy

Ann,
Thanks for directing me to this post. I guess I will be the first person to disagree with your post and the thread thus far. I hear everyone's concerns, but I disagree.
I think there will be individuals who will abuse this system of "pay per post" - people abuse every system. From welfare to the (now-defunct) AllAdvantage paid-to-surf program. I think that we are reacting too strongly to a good idea. We can't allow ourselves to ban ideas because they have the potential (or most definetly will be) abused. We can only encourage proper usage of these dangerous means.
On each post I make for ReviewMe or PayPerPost I add a disclosure - whether I have to or not. I also won't make any post that requires a "positive response" unless I have already reviewed the product and decide I really do like it.
I think these posts are similar to the "advertising supplements" one sees in many industry magazines these days. You recognize that they are generally pro-product but at the same time they are going to attempt to make a factual support for this position.
Adsense and etc. is nice, but it just can't match PayPerPost and ReviewMe. I make perhaps $2-$3/day from advertising on a network of sites I own with hundreds of pages. I'm still new at this whole contextual advertising thing, so I'm probably missing out - but still, the comparison is non-existent. Posts for ReviewMe and PayPerPost yield many times the revenue. Many of us can only continue to provide good content in volume if we have the time, and time requires money.

Hi David --

Thanks for weighing in, especially since you are a lone voice here. I had a feeling you might have a different perspective, and I really appreciate you sharing it.

I understand your reasoning -- even if it does remind me of the lobbyist's rationalizations in "Thank You for Smoking" (!) -- but I still think it's a bad policy to use a blogger's words as an ad model. That being said, I do think the way you handle paid posts on your blog -- i.e., the way you set apart a PayPerPost post with the words "Sponsored Post" and in a different color scheme -- is forthcoming.

In other words, I don't agree with the concept, but you handle the execution well. Thanks so much again.