Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Sweet, I hope I get my commission on this.

George Soros pays me to pretend I'm a liberal on videosift. In reality I support the Whig party.

Hi Dag,

Scott here, one of the offending emailers, from the Technorati Media Blogger Outreach team.

My apologies if the receipt of the message offended you. What you’ve shared about bloggers as journalists is certainly true in many cases – and I’m glad we have them doing that important work.

On the flip side, there are many types of bloggers we work with who write passionately about their personal lives, experiences, hobbies, causes, opinions or interests and they welcome opportunities to review new products (like this iPad app) or develop sponsored articles–if the posts fit their editorial direction and keep the integrity of their blog. The “good” and the “bad” of a review is always up to the blogger and sponsored content is typically on a topic the blogger has an affinity for and not about a product itself.

When a blogger works on a campaign with us, we require that they disclose when they have received a product to review or payment for post in the manner of their blog our using a tool like . Most of them are doing this anyway and it’s part of our follow up to the bloggers interested in participating.

We are working on ways and finding tools to better help us connect bloggers with opportunities they find relevant. It's big challenge, but we're working on it.

A big part of my position is not marketing for clients, but to also promote blogs, bloggers and blogging. I huge fan of all the different POVs out there and connecting bloggers to opportunities they might be interested in.

All the best...

Scott Lyon
Blogger Outreach Manager
Technorati Media

Hey Dag, the disclosure tool I mentioned is . For some reason it dropped out of my post above and I the edit feature is timing out.

Scott

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Hi Scott, I'm glad to hear that you are requiring disclosure - but in poking around and talking to a few people - I don't believe this is universal.

I take your argument, but in general I think the practice of paid blogging is sleazy and detrimental to the entire blogging ecosystem. You're basically drumming up fake enthusiasm for products or services that a blogger would not normally promote. It's bad for the products and most of all, it's terrible for the blogger, because it erodes any sense of trust that the reader may have had in them.

IMO it's a pretty shameful practice and you'd do well to divorce yourself (and Technorati) from it.

Thanks.

>> ^ScottLyon:

Hi Dag,
Scott here, one of the offending emailers, from the Technorati Media Blogger Outreach team.
My apologies if the receipt of the message offended you. What you’ve shared about bloggers as journalists is certainly true in many cases – and I’m glad we have them doing that important work.
On the flip side, there are many types of bloggers we work with who write passionately about their personal lives, experiences, hobbies, causes, opinions or interests and they welcome opportunities to review new products (like this iPad app) or develop sponsored articles–if the posts fit their editorial direction and keep the integrity of their blog. The “good” and the “bad” of a review is always up to the blogger and sponsored content is typically on a topic the blogger has an affinity for and not about a product itself.
When a blogger works on a campaign with us, we require that they disclose when they have received a product to review or payment for post in the manner of their blog our using a tool like . Most of them are doing this anyway and it’s part of our follow up to the bloggers interested in participating.
We are working on ways and finding tools to better help us connect bloggers with opportunities they find relevant. It's big challenge, but we're working on it.
A big part of my position is not marketing for clients, but to also promote blogs, bloggers and blogging. I huge fan of all the different POVs out there and connecting bloggers to opportunities they might be interested in.
All the best...
Scott Lyon
Blogger Outreach Manager
Technorati Media

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Hi Scott, sorry about the link dropping it's an anti-spam measure for new accounts.

>> ^ScottLyon:

Hey Dag, the disclosure tool I mentioned is . For some reason it dropped out of my post above and I the edit feature is timing out.
Scott

Hey Dag,

Thanks and I agree it's a problem if bloggers are not disclosing those important details. Thanks for the feedback and talking about it - it's an important discussion.

I love how this guy signed up today in order to shill his product.
I Really love how he tried--twice--to link to it (fail).

dag, Thank You for standing by your principles--even in the face of much needed money.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

To be fair, I don't think he was linking to his product, rather a tool for disclosure on blogs. >> ^Boise_Lib:

I love how this guy signed up today in order to shill his product.
I Really love how he tried--twice--to link to it (fail).
dag, Thank You for standing by your principles--even in the face of much needed money.

>> ^dag:

To be fair, I don't think he was linking to his product, rather a tool for disclosure on blogs. >> ^Boise_Lib:
I love how this guy signed up today in order to shill his product.
I Really love how he tried--twice--to link to it (fail).
dag, Thank You for standing by your principles--even in the face of much needed money.



Yeah, I got that after the update I didn't see till after I commented. Still, good on ya.

Really interesting discussion. I have never countenanced the idea of paid blogging. Most of the blogs I read are by frustrated political and economics junkies, and don't really lend themselves readily to product placement.

"This Government's economic policies are counterproductive, not like my new Technocrati app which is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing!"

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I just can't see any situation where paid blogging is a "good thing" for bloggers. My understanding is that the pay is not great, but the cost to the blogger is immense. It's large moneyed corporations preying on the little, desperate guy as usual - sucking the life-force of credibility from bloggers for a few bucks. Shameful.

>> ^kymbos:

Really interesting discussion. I have never countenanced the idea of paid blogging. Most of the blogs I read are by frustrated political and economics junkies, and don't really lend themselves readily to product placement.
"This Government's economic policies are counterproductive, not like my new Technocrati app which is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing!"

Well, if you review apps on a blog, and someone pays you $10 to review theirs, and you do so honestly - is that so bad? I guess the reader would begin to question your credibility - is that what you're driving at?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I suppose it would be a little different if you had a flat rate $10 review policy for all apps submitted. But that's different from what the email outlined. They're talking about cross-promotion if the company likes your post. They make it quite clear that the objective is to get people to download the app - a shitty review isn't going to help that, and the implication is that you sure won't get any promotional help if that's the case.

It's just dirty, dirty, dirty.>> ^kymbos:

Well, if you review apps on a blog, and someone pays you $10 to review theirs, and you do so honestly - is that so bad? I guess the reader would begin to question your credibility - is that what you're driving at?

Yep, fair enough. There's the clear implication of 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' there.