In GNC #316 Todd asks our opinions of Mark Hopkin’s post on Mashable that questions whether IZEA is evil or not ,and I wanted to share my opinion with you.
PayPerPost is a shortcut that damages the future potential of Blogging. Bloggers that participate in this type of marketing get extra money now, but limit the money they could get in the future, and the money available to everyone else. In essence it is a selfish act and “Advanced Monetization” is an euphemism in the class of “friendly fire”. Let me expand.
I do not mean this as a criticism of Mr Hopkin’s views, this is not a simple topic with an obviously correct answer. In these cases different people will put different weights on different facts which will alter their own personal conclusion. Unfortunately human nature often drives us to subconsciously select the parts of the story that support a position that benefits ourselves. Some of Mark’s points are valid to a degree.
- It is a worthwhile pursuit to improve search algorithms, but I question the altruism of someone that claims this is their goal while making money out of gaming the system.
- The extra money can help Bloggers to build their site and content level, but I will explain why this is bad.
However three of his points are misguided
- Claiming that the size difference between startup Bloggers and the established sites like Engadget is somehow a social injustice
“Begrudging small-time bloggers a chance to make money like your highly trafficked blog because you don’t think other methods of generating revenue are ethical is greedy and arrogant”
is at best trite and at worst sophistry. - To state that not doing this is detrimental to the Blogging community
“Disparaging organizations that allow small time bloggers to make significant money doing what they like is myopic and detrimental to the community at large”
is the opposite of reality. Undisclosed ads in blogs will give a temporary gain to some at the expense of long term gains to all. - And to rely on a free market to decide this
“In essence, we should be quiet and let the market decide.”
is to court disaster. Free markets only work when there is free and complete information. We regulate markets simply because they are imperfect.
Not only is there not enough information for “the market” to make an educated choice, to promote products without disclosure actually subverts the possibility of a free market to create the correct balance. The whole PayPerPost paradigm offers incentives to game the system for quick personal gain without consideration of effect it has on others.
This matters because of the foundation that Blogging (and following that PodCasting and video) is based on. It is a raw and honest expression form closer to a diary entry than a magazine article. Because people have shown their vulnerability, been willing to make public mistakes, been honest in their opinions a level of trust has built for the medium. The opportunity is there for this to continue, and to build, and to be the major cornerstone of media. This is the potential prize if we maintain our integrity, but it will not yield explosive growth. It may grow in explosive spurts, but will take time.
The path of the hidden ad would bring the blog back to the level of the TV advertorial and is old media thinking. I have posted before on the difference between good and bad marketing, and almost by definition a company that needs to make their ads seem like real news or opinion are trying to fool their audience. If you play this game you are complicit in the lie.
This is not Chicken Little, the sky is not going to fall in if a few small blogs do this. There are more than enough dodgy blogs out there already and this has not killed anything. The problem comes if this gets large enough to be considered normal, or if well known sites that have built trust with their audience start accepting covert endorsements. If the audience feels they are being lied to they will cease to consume. This will reduce the audience, reduce the marketing clout and the blogger will be ultimately worse off. If you want to understand how this can happen read and understand this.
No matter what justification you give, posting an advertisement or PR release without disclosure would be considered (correctly) by your audience as a lie. People don’t like to be lied to, and are better than you think at detecting it. You will gain in the short term but it will harm you more when you are eventually discovered. If enough bloggers engage in deceptive advertising practices it will negatively effect all bloggers.
Comments (2)
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.
Posted by Pete | November 13, 2007 12:09 PM
Posted on November 13, 2007 12:09
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.
Posted by Karoli | November 13, 2007 11:12 PM
Posted on November 13, 2007 23:12