Sponsored
Shockingly, there’s some controversy being drummed up on a blog regarding a company. Michael Arrington seems pretty upset at PayPerPost and covers them in more detail over a number of posts.
But his current discussion is over rockstartup.com, a website that I recently wrote a post on. My original sentiments still hold on RockStartup. His discussions are definitely worth merit and I love the naked guy giving him hell while still in bed.
I try to maintain a reasonable standard of morality that allows me to sleep at night and that’s pretty much it. I’m happy to say that all my sponsored posts have been labeled as sponsored up front, but that’s because that’s what I’m comfortable with and most advertisers don’t mind. If they do mind, I’ll pass because that’s where my very wavy moral line in the sand stands today. Even with the standards I hold to myself, I can’t really see myself trying to impose them upon any other blogger. Blogging is far more artificial than some believe. Though you do have to take it seriously to an extent where you won’t post something you regret, so long as you meet that criteria that’s all that’s really required in terms of self-censorship and morality.
The morality of blogs has been a remarkable sociological learning experience for me as of late. I’ve been reading a bit here there and everywhere. There seems to be this interesting standard set by some that blogs are to be held to similar standards as news agencies. While I respect that point of view, I don’t agree with it at all. The web remains a very wild frontier and the medium has an inherent sense of “if you don’t like it don’t watch/read/listen”. But again, the issues are interesting.
PayPerPost, TechCrunch
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1 response so far ↓
1 Ian // Dec 4, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Ah, I thought the “sponsored post” was a requirement. Kudos, for what it’s worth I appreciate that. My problem with it isn’t so much the advertising — well I mean, it sort of is, but that’s a ridiculously grey/nebulous area… what differentiates it from real advertising (ie a banner)? What if I really like a product and give it a write-up out of the goodness of my heart? etc. My problem is more that it’s somewhat of an insidious form of advertising, like product placement in TV/movies. It doesn’t really give you the option to “not watch/read/listen” because it’s not honest up-front about what it really is.
For example, for most of your sponsored posts, while I was suspicious of them given the tone and subject matter, I would have given you the benefit of the doubt about them being legit had I not seen your tagging. A few of them I would have, but only because of the google-friendly-keyword-packed-domains.com