Am I a two-dollar whore?
Posted by Karoli in Uncategorized October 2nd, 2006
[This post is entirely mine and mine alone. I have not been paid to write it, think it, or post it]
I seriously want your opinions on this.
I’ve written reviews of Vox, Flock, books, Blogher advertisers, web calendars, and computer stores. I wrote a post about Scoble’s recent Podtech show featuring Thomas Hawk. I wrote them because they were of interest to me and so I thought they might be of interest to you, or to visitors to the blog.
More recently, I let you all know that I was going to experiment with the PayPerPost model to try and make money for a better lens for the camera and also to see whether a model based on actual sincere blog posts was as solid as the AdSense model. Those posts are here, here, here and here.
Now the “big boys” weigh in. Robert Scoble says “…the blogosphere is being bought off” and [he] “sure won’t buy something just based on one blogger the way I might have if, say, Dave Winer said he liked a product.”
Matthew Ingram writes,
In other words, it made them worse from a marketing point of view. But the hard part for me is that the posts we’re talking about are payola — although the PayPerPost people would obviously like you to think that all those bloggers chose to receive money for things that they were already going to blog about positively anyway because they just love those products so much, gosh darn it.
Over on DrewMeyerInsights.com, the reasons for pooh-poohing it go like this:
I think bloggers that get paid to write about something will produce crappy posts for the most part. Forced blogging hardly ever works. Just relate forced blogging to a forced job to get an idea about how bad of an idea this is.
So I leave it to you to decide. Compare the unpaid posts with the paid ones and tell me honestly — does writing posts for pay somehow undermine the integrity of those I wrote for free? Is there a difference between how I wrote the ones for pay and the ones I wrote for free?
Or am I a two-dollar whore? If so, I’d make a heckuva lot more money walking the streets…at a limit of three posts per day max, I’m a pretty cheap date.
Update: Dave Winer thinks it’s a better way of what’s been done “informally” for years because it’s out in the open.
Update #2: CrunchGear calls it “shilling” and gets the facts wrong.
Technorati Tags: payperpost, robert scoble, web20, advertising
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…living life in 19/7 time 
Hey Drumsnwhistles — just for the record, I don’t think you’re a two-dollar whore
And I have no problem with your PayPerPost posts, because you disclosed the fact that you were being paid. That’s what I was hoping PayPerPost would get all their bloggers to do, but they haven’t.
Mathew
Ditto to what Mathew said.
I do PayPerPost too (only I sold my soul for a lot more than $2. Heheh). But I always disclosed where I was taking money from. As long as you do too I don’t have a problem with it.
But, this isn’t really about credibility. The reason I’d be hiring PayPerPost is to get a great Google PageRank.
I think that may be my favorite post title…Ever. But don’t think of yourself as cheap…value engineered sounds much better
LOL, Lee — I like that. I think I’ll have to use that term sometime soon.
DnW
As long as you plainly disclose which posts are being paid for and which are not… then those who don’t like reading paid-for blog entries can simply stop reading your blog if they desire.
[...] Start here since you’re here already. And by the way, I’m up for collecting a few bucks on this one because I’m sick of making comments on the incredibly nasty blog posts that are written about PPP, so I’m going to write it here and let them pay me to take the time to explain this again. I’ve already explained my own approach to PayPerPost. Any post which I receive payment for is either tagged, categorized or has a declaration in the text that it is a paid post. And this is one. Consider it disclosed. [...]
nice post DnW!
Beyond demonstrating your quality, it highlights that the question is a personal one for each blogger to resolve with themself and their audience, not one that is PPP’s to dictate.
The blogosphere is a world of many channels, not one big channel. Just as cable TV or ham radio provide a ton of channels, with each conveying its own message/content/ethics, every blogger is a media channel that needs to make decisions that work for its authors, advertisers and audiences.
Keep up the great blogging!
Thanks Dan, and welcome to the blog.
I am seeing at least the dawn of understanding among those who were so quick to call us whores — that’s a good thing.
As time goes on and the integrity of the system shows itself to be valid, I think the buzz will turn from positive to negative.
I do think that the more PPPosties who disclose, the better. I see that as nothing but good for everyone.
DnW
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