I keep getting back to PayPerPost, but I hadn’t noticed that Jason Calacanis and Jeff Jarvis had picked up the meme again a few days back. Of course, I couldn’t agree with their positions more.
Jeff Jarvis nicely points out the problem with the system and links to simplekindoflife.com, written by our friend ColleenC.
CollenC, by the way, also shills stuff on 3daymom.com
for a fundraiser. Her affiliation with PayPerPost is now disclosed in
her latest post, but until Oct 19th, it wasn’t - in her “What Are We
Doing Section”, it still isn’t disclosed. She is doing a good thing, raising money for breast cancer awareness. Hat’s off for that, but why usePayPerPost? You cheapen the good cause of this blog (though it doesn’t excuse the deception on simplekindoflife).
The problem with this is that it doesn’t affect just one
blogger. Bloggers’ detractors love to measure us by our lowest
common denominator: if one snarks, all snark; if one sells out, all
sell out. This is why Jason Calicanis calls it a cancer.Calacanis has been tilting at this windmill, calling out PayPerPost very effectively. He is optimistic that they have seen the error of their ways but I’m not so sure. PayPerPost brags about this
blogger earning $1,000. And so I read her blog and have no idea whether
to trust that her opinions are her own or those of her paymaster: Does
she really like these flip-flops, this security system, Disney, or FTD flowers, or Bath & Bodyworks? I have no way of knowing because she doesn’t say who’s paying her. Not that I’m in the market for a motorcycle, but I wouldn’t trust her opinion if I were.
Technorati Tags: payperpost, payperpostbluemonster, marketing, decpetion
What yo may not have been aware of is that we were able to donate money to Colleen’s fund as one of our options. So some people, instead of taking payment on some opps donated the money to her Breast Cancer Walk.
:\ sorry for the typo, yo=you
Cheers, Deb
Deb, Thanks for pointing that out - and giving the money to a good cause is definitely a very honorable thing. It does not take away from the general ethical problem that the posts remained undisclosed, though.