Why I won’t use PayPerPost (and if I do, I will disclose)

@28. Gimme a f***king break! You wrote a book to get paid, right? Certainly you didn’t do it for charity. Otherwise you would have dropped it from the sky rather than put it on Amazon. Should we now not read your book because you wrote it and got paid for it? You didn’t blatantly state that but one would have to be naive to think otherwise. Should you tell us if people that invite you to a conference to speak comped you your room and possibly your travel before your speak? I mean, you credibilty my be at risk. People who write columns do it for money. I could give a shit if a blogger is getting paid for their writing. All that should be important is what they have to say. Do you really think this will turn the blogosphere into Pravda? Are you really that distrustful of people?

#29: Dmad, it’s obvious you have never thought about conflict of interest. The publisher that paid for my book wasn’t paying me to take a specific stance like “PayPerPost” will.

A columnist is paid to write, yes, but newspapers don’t let advertisers tell columnists what to write.

Just a note that I wasn’t the single winner – I was in a syndicate of about 8 of us who added our raffle tickets together. So somehow the 8 (or 9?) of us will have to split the Sonos I love the product though.

‘A columnist is paid to write, yes, but newspapers don’t let advertisers tell columnists what to write.’

True but if someone from the advertising department rings an editor and says there’s ad money in a column about how colour laser printers are da bomb then you bet your ass that before long there’d a column about it and there’d be advertising in that very same issue from said company.

PayPerPost has inspired me to start my new blog: BloggerForSale.com.

Robert: “A columnist is paid to write, yes, but newspapers don’t let advertisers tell columnists what to write.”

Not true. It’s not so black and white, but that behavior is more common than it should be. And it isn’t advertisers doing all the offering. I’ve heard stories of magazine editors saying “If you pay for a back page ad, we’ll score your product higher.” It’s sad but true. Good companies like Ziff Davis (1up.com, EGM, etc.) keep their advertising/PR people completely separate from their editors and I think that helps.

I agree with you Robert on complete disclosure of any “gifts” you receive because of who you are and that you write (and well from my viewpoint). I have written a column for a User Group magazine for over 20 Years and I always let people know whether I received the software/hardware as a gift or I paid for it. Normally I did contribute the product as a raffle prize at meetings. This way I felt much better and could be objective in my comments on a product.

Good luck at your new company and I look forward to more blogs from you.

But yet you will blindly accept Al Gore’s theory on global warming without questioning who is behind the funding of the research and what the motives of those funding that research are. Brilliant!

Dmad: good point, but irrelevant. The fact that you know who funded his research demonstrates that he disclosed it.

If disclosure is all that matters, then PayForPost needs to definitely change their name. Then, you can post full disclosure about the company that “sponsored” the post and still disguise the fact that the post was actually paid for.

Is this right, wrong, ethical or just economics?

Companies give you free stuff, you play with it, you give it away, and you blog about it. You feel OK because you make full disclosure, and you don’t keep the free stuff. PayPerPost gives me money when I blog about something one of their advertisers will pay for. I feel OK because I make full disclosure, and I won’t write crap just to get paid. And I’m not going to keep the prize, either. I’ll most likely spend it within days, if not hours, of receiving it. As long as both of us maintain our honesty and integrity, I don’t see a problem.

Another one to send to the PR folks.

I wish all tech reviewers had a link to their bio – that included how long they’d used the platform/software and which competitor products they used.

Business reporters should have to disclose stock/mutual fund positions in anything that they write about (pan a company, better tell me you own stock in a competitor).

Some political reporters don’t vote for just that reason.

The practice of “reviewing” until you give it away is ridiculous. I gave away my laptop now …I’m reviewing a new laptop…whew, rough life. Guess what? You are in the top .0001% of bloggers out there that get a laptop much less anything else. Most bloggers are happy to earn enough for a cheese burger from AdSense. It’s easy to give things away when they will surely be replaced by the next item you are “reviewing”.

You make yourself feel better by giving things away, but you are no better than anyone else who accepts products or cash. You are simply rent-to-write.

The only reason you can even consider doing something like this is the fact that you don’t need the money or the product. It’s like celebrities getting $10k gift bags at award shows. Give the stuff to the people who need it least. They do the same thing, take a couple photos then give the product to mom because you just got another to replace it.

If you were to give the same offer to honestly review and keep a $1200 product the overwhelming majority of the blogosphere would do it. Hell, send me a Sonos. I will review it, I will be honest in my review and I won’t have a problem at all sleeping at night.

I find it honorable that you give your products away, however you have to acknowledge that there is a huge difference between you and the rest of the world.

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#29: Dmad, it’s obvious you have never thought about conflict of interest. The publisher that paid for my book wasn’t paying me to take a specific stance like “PayPerPost” will.
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What gave you the impression that we are making bloggers take a specific stance. Bloggers choose what they want to write about Robert. Maybe if it was called “Microsoft PayPerPost” you would have actually used the system before you bashed it.

Pay Per Post is blogwhoring, like artificial Word of Mouth buzz agents, a paid enthusiast activity.

To accept money to blog about products you actually don’t use or like, etc.

I take the swag, I always list full disclosure that I was using a free sample. I even keep a page that lists all of the stuff I’ve received for free and links to the reviews.

I don’t have the same moral qualms about it that you do. If I don’t like something then I’m going to say it. On my reviews for my free Nokia phone I give lists of the people I think should be fired because of poor design decisions.

My rule of thumb is that all a “free sample” guarantees is a mention, and that’s if I end up using it.