By: Karoli

Karoli — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 06:12:43 +0000

I left a comment earlier but it doesn't seem to be appearing on the site. Any reason why? Here's what I said earlier. Your post assumes non-disclosure when disclosure has been required, not optional, for the past six months. Further, Ted Murphy's post explaining SocialSpark says this: PayPerPost already requires mandatory disclosure, we take this a step further in SocialSpark with systematic in-post disclosure via disclosure badge in all sponsored posts. We have also taken away the tone option, leaving tone entirely in the blogger's hands. So when you say... Undisclosed ads in blogs will give a temporary gain to some at the expense of long term gains to all. ...you are applying a set of conditions in your argument that doesn't exist. I listen to GNCs twice weekly where Todd talks about how much he likes GoDaddy's services and appreciates their sponsorship, and guess what? I use GoDaddy. Because Todd says so. What is the difference between that and writing a paid post for someone with full disclosure that it is a paid post expressing my honest opinion, positive or negative? I don't write for them anymore, but not because of PayPerPost. I have other conflicts that prevent me from doing so, but if I could, I would. I know of no other person who has come out publicly and said they listened to the criticism of the folks who raked them over, but Ted Murphy did. I know of no other advertising venue available to small bloggers (who, by the way, can't even get feedburner ads on their feeds!) where they can be creative, have fun, and be part of a community. But Ted is building one. As one final point, I'd like to say that PPP has helped a lot of people who were in serious trouble. Single moms deeply in debt facing the loss of their home, charities (I wrote my posts for charity), college students and others who could use a few bucks to help with bills or other needs. We weren't a bunch of short-cutting shysters out there aiming to undermine the good names of bloggers everywhere. My email address is attached to this post. If it's deleted for some reason, I'd appreciate it if someone would tell me why, since I don't believe I've said anything dishonest, profane, or otherwise unacceptable for the site.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:09:56 +0000

Interesing information but are you really that surprised by these comments? We live in an age where everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame more so than actually providing any valuable information or usefulness. There are tons of fly by night scam artists offline, it's not surprising that suddenly those same people will do the same things online. The problem is far too many people fall for this kind of crap and cons and in the end, all bloggers, podcasters, and video bloggers/producers will pay the price. I blog and produce online videos that are more about traveling than anything else. My family and friends live 3000+ miles away from me, so it's a way for them to keep up to date as well as for others just to see interesting things that aren't just your normal touristy destinations. I also write some short comedies and try to make a new episode of that now and again. I like writing and I like making vidoes. I like improving and learning new things about technology, writing, and producing online videos. Sometimes it feels like a second full time job that pays me very little if at all, but in the end, it feels like my small audience likes to see a new episode every week or so. And it keeps my family and friends up to date since I don't visit the east coast much anymore. But I know plenty of people who post 4 second videos only to make money. They have no desire to become good at making videos, writing stories, coming up with valuable content, or anything. There are a lot of bloggers, web video producers and even some podcasters who just release something so they can make more money or hope to make money. And we see this in magazines and on tv all the time. Fake Ads that are written or produced as if it's supposed to be real.. The sad fact is many people choose to ignore everything. Am I surprised by this? Not at all. As I said before, Wikipedia is nothing more than mostly BS press clippings or fanboys vs fanboys. At one time it used to be a valuable resource, now it just seems like a site where you go to get your latest celebrity gossip that they want you to hear over valuable true information. Go figure bloggers, podcasters, and web video producers are starting to put up fake crap. In the end it'll only make it worse for those who do provide valuable true content. Because as soon as something new becomes popular, those scam artists will jump ship once again and could care less what they ruined.

Comments on: My view on PayPerPost

By: Karoli

By: Pete