Pro PayPerPost Ad Hominem Attacks

11 Comments so far

1. Josh on October 24, 2006 3:29 pm

   Loren has something very substantial to say. Why does it bother people (like Jason and Jeff) if people get paid to blog about specific products or brands? Does anyone care when A-Rod gets paid to drink Pepsi and say how great it tastes?

2. Frederic on October 24, 2006 7:16 pm

   If I know he is payed by Pepsi, I know to be cynical enough not to take him serious though. If I don’t know it and he is payed by Pepsi, then he should disclose that.

3. Josh on October 24, 2006 7:32 pm

   Usually, that big Pepsi symbol visible throughout the entire advertisement gives it away…

4. Frederic on October 24, 2006 7:52 pm

   I didn’t take your comment to mean drinking Pepsi in the context of an explicit ad. I was more thinking about the context of a press conference or interview. That’s what I think most PPP users are doing - hence the need for disclosure.

   I don’t that much of a problem with PPP in a clearly disclosed ad - not at the bottom of the post, but at the top of every post. I still think it would be cheap of a company to use PPP to market, but that’s the company’s decision - definitely would hurt the reputation, though.

5. Ben on October 24, 2006 10:33 pm

   I think you meant “uninformed” and not “uniformed”. He wasn’t wearing a uniform.

6. Frederic on October 24, 2006 10:53 pm

   I stand corrected…

7. VC Dan on October 25, 2006 10:07 am

   Hey Fred,

   First, please check my siglink for plenty of context.

   I’ve been trying to cut through your drama/venom and understand your real concern with bloggers getting paid for their efforts/hosting by companies who want more exposure. It sounds like you see some merits in a system that connects advertisers and bloggers, while also honoring the idea that bloggers/podcasters/videographers/photographers should own and cherish their product and their audience relationship. Is that accurate? Can you provide more details on your position here?

   I was also curious what your specific disclosure policy is. I (and presumably other readers) cannot find it on this page. I can also see from Alexa and PPP forums you are getting plenty of new readers (mostly Posties) from attacking PPP that have no idea what your clear disclosure policy is. Given how strongly you feel about this, would you be willing to document your disclosure policy (including affiliations) and place a link somewhere that audiences can find it? I’m going to over the next week or so and would love to see you do the same.

   Thanks!

8. Frederic on October 25, 2006 11:54 am

   Dan, that’s a actually a very good idea. I will try to write something about how I think bloggers could work with advertising without seeming unethical over the weekend (sorry busy week/weekend ahead).

   As for my disclosure, that’s a good idea as well. I will add a page at the top of the site for that later today, but for now, rest assured, I am only affiliated with the following organizations:

   - The Medieval Academy of America
   - The University of Connecticut where I am working on a Ph.D.

   That’s it - nothing I do in ‘real’ life is even remotely linked to technology. It is just what I enjoy doing when not thinking about medieval monasteries or working with my students.

9. Frederic on October 25, 2006 12:01 pm

   I forgot - the PPP posts have brought in a lot of links, which surely has helped my Technorati ranking. As for traffic, though, the most popular post over the last week by far has been my ‘review’ of AOL’s OpenRide software. Views for all the PPP posts together don’t even come close to to the number of people who came in through Google searching for ‘AOL OpenRide’ (#1 for ‘AOL OpenRide Review’ and #10 for ‘AOL OpenRide’). The amount of comments doesn’t reflect that, though

10. VC Dan on October 25, 2006 12:55 pm

    kewl, and congrats on the AOL OpenRide review!

11. Justin on October 30, 2006 4:29 pm

    Thanks for the link. Those 3 minutes of making a fool of myself earned me $200.