Blog integrity is important

I wouldn’t go as far as digitaliger (#29) but it’s certainly an interesting dilemma. Calacanis makes no clear mention (aside from in a few specific posts) that he is currently employed by AOL. So if I come through Google to a specific post on his blog which gushes about the supreme ultimateness of Netscape vs Digg, where is the disclosure?

By not disclosing on every post that refers to netscape.com, the onus is on the reader to figure out if it’s a legit point of view. Credit is due to Jason for having the blurb on the top right about being Weblogs Inc CEO. Perhaps its time for an update.

Should all big bloggers have a statement of disclosure as part of the standard site layout?

The problem with that approach is it then gives an incentive for competitors to post about you on PPP. If you could get a company kicked off Google just by paying for a post on PPP in their name, it would seem to make for a cheap way to damage the competition.

It’s something that’s been axiomatic in the gaming industry for years: there isn’t a system of rules that a determined player can’t game.

Sorry for the second post, but I came across a post on Guy Kawasaki’s blog that is one step closer to full disclosure, but it’s at the bottom of the post.

The post is clearly pimping Coghead, but it’s not until the end that I find out his affiliation. This changes the context of the post completely.

If everyone is getting into a huff about PayPerPost putting disclosure at the top of each post, it would seem that the same standard needs to be applied to a heck of a lot of bloggers.

Phil, that’s is how it works.

Ok, here’s your PPP free search engine:

http://search.live.com/macros/andyed/realbloggers/

I only found about 200 folks who appear to be using the counttrackula single pixel gif in our index.

Here’s the syntax behind the macro:
-inbody:counttrackula.com hasfeed: (prefer:inurl:2006 | prefer:inurl:2007)

The -inbody removes the PPC pages, hasfeed limits the search to pages with rss/atom/xml, and the prefer throws in a boost for fresh stuff in normal blog url patterns. I went ahead and put in 2007 so I don’t have to update in 2 months

I’m curious Andy. I think it’s very impressive what you’ve done with LiveSearch there to filter out count trackula stuff on the one hand. On the other, wouldn’t it be a better investment of your time to prevent windows live search returning pornography to underage minors that can find it with just a few key clicks and no age-checks.

Just curious as to Microsofts view here is all – underage pornography, warez etc = fine, paid blogging (like Scoble here) = not fine.

Interesting.

digitaltiger: and I disclosed who was paying me (and do on the home page of my blog).

As to Jason Calacanis: everyone knows he works for AOL, so he obviously disclosed his biases somewhere too.

Phil:

>>What I don’t get with PPP is that you can’t choose which blogs write about you and since a good percentage of blogs get very close to 0 readers per day it’s a bit of a strange set up.

The real readership comes from search engines. If I were to advertise on PayPerPost it wouldn’t be to get your readers. It’d be to get your link to something specific so that I could get that high on Google/Live/Yahoo.

This is all about gaming the search engines and doing some cheap SEO.

@36 There you go with your myopic view of the word. “Everyone knows Calacanis works for AOL”? Really? How do you know that? How do you kow EVERYONE that comes to his blog knows he works for AOL before arriving? Maybe “everyone” in your out of touch world knows,but I would bet that’s a very low percentage of people.

@36 There you go with your myopic view of the word. “Everyone knows Calacanis works for AOL”? Really? How do you know that? How do you kow EVERYONE that comes to his blog knows he works for AOL before arriving? Maybe “everyone” in your out of touch world knows,but I would bet that’s a very low percentage of people.

LayZ: it’s on his Wikipedia entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Calacanis

He’s written about it enough.

And, anyone who tried to make a claim that he’s tried to hide his affiliation with AOL would look like an idiot.

Definitely didn’t mean to set off a sore spot, but I think the original point still stands. For someone who happens not to know who Calacanis or Scoble is, reading any of their blog posts without that disclosure information is potentially misleading.

The internet is all about nuggets of information and we can’t assume that people have connected the dots.

I suppose the subtlety is that the Calacanis’ of the net are not going out of their way to deceive readers the way PPP is.

The world is permeated with deception and misinformation served up by people with vested interests, so perhaps we shouldn’t worry if a few bloggers get a few bucks.

In the end, no single opinion, biased or non, should be relied upon to form your own judgement.

Robert,

I’m surprised you ducked question @11. Any thoughts on the more lucrative pay-for-exposure/link approaches currently employed by the elites daily? One example would be exclusive press releases, which are worth thousands in advertising/click-throughs and generate hundreds of backlinks for the company paying bloggers via an exclusive. Or maybe free products, or free passes, or direct employment, or panel positions — all given with blended goals of exposure/buzz/linkage…

Also, @40 are you suggesting that a disclosure policy like Jason’s that relies on people chasing down his background (via Wikipedia or other tools) is what you support?

On a more intellectually honest note, it sounds like you support disclosure at a blog level as you, Jason and other elites do? Is that true or do you believe disclosure is something better decided by the bloggers who know best their relationship with their audience (the way Jason knows his)? Or, is every blogger’s disclosure policy best decided by you?

Direct answers, not redirects, appreciated…

All bloggers are being paid somehow, whether that currency is dollars or other. C’mon!

…it’s even more dismaying to see Edelman’s high-powered social media experts failing to walk the talk.

Geee…imagine that. The biggest preachers for, seemingly are most often the Commandment breakers. Psychological projection done Social Media Web 2.0ish. But Walmart? Focus on the low prices, wide variety and commodity markets…nothing can ever make Wally World hip. To be hip, you need unique, exclusive, designerish products, not just the ‘Made in China’ Walmart hoard. Target got the hip kick halfway down, but even then all the viral marketing monies are mostly wholesale wasted…

Basic common sense really (to anyone outside the hive mind), but this is exactly what happens when you start believing your own PR.

My interest in what blogger integrity means influenced me in writing Who is TechAddress?. TechAddress is a WordPress.com hosted blog doing a lot of interviews with start up leaders while the blog author is mostly anonymous.

@40 I’m not suggesting he his trying to hide his identity.

So, now we’ve narowwed it down to people that take the time to look him up on Wikipedia know who he is. That’s still, for the most part, a small section of people. Certainly not “everybody”

Good lord, even *I* know who Calcanis works for, and I’m a bloody starving artist. Don’t be coy, LayZ.

I don’t think the issue here is payment; the issue here is disclosure.

There are federal regulations that specify how you identify paid advertising and how you identify regular content, and it’s high time those standards were applied to the blogosphere. Note that this will not effect most bloggers, most of whom are NOT paid for their work.

All you have in the blogosphere is your reputation, and if you get a reputation for being rented or bought, then that’s only fair. It may, indeed, be legally mandatory, if you can find a judge who’s willing to be openminded.

I agree that paid bloggers should disclose who pays them. The mainstream media just went through this issue when it was revealed how many journalists are paid to write (favorably) about a company or issue group. Many of them, and they were some of the biggest names in journalism, protested that they were still objective despite the money, but the stench remained and sullied their reputations. As you say, as long as they reveal that they are paid to represent a company or group, that is honest. If they don’t, that is dishonest. The blogosphere was built on trust, and dishonet money floating around, destroys that trust. Just be honest about it is a good, and honest, standard.

Once an engine starts banning websites for external links, however acquired, they open up a new market for the “virtual hitman”. Just as the long argument against paid links goes, allowing an external link to negatively affect a site’s standing in the search results simply means that websites in competitve markets will start running those campaigns to knock their competitors off. It will never work, will be impossible to administer fairly, and would penalize scores of innocent mom and pop websites in the process.

If the engines have a problem with it, the only possible solution (as with paid links) is to simply block any pagerank/trustrank/link juice from being passed on from the offending blogs/sites that are selling links.

Anything else, and you’ll be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.