May 22, 2006

I found a couple of posts recently mentioning Marqui's "Paybloggers" program from 2004 and early 2005 - in which we paid 20 bloggers to post about Marqui once a week for three months, no matter what they said.  (You can still read some of the controversy leading up to the program here.)

It seems that Tris Hussey (a consultant who admits freely his blog is sponsored by Blogware/Tucows) and Mark Evans (a journalist and blogger who displays ads on his blog) are discussing the debate around ethics and being paid for blogging. 

More and more, people are attending seminars and exploring blogging on their own and for business, and the question ALWAYS comes up: 

How do I make money from blogging?

There are a myriad of ways (sponsorships, display ads, etc.) to make a little here and there.  Marqui's pay to post approach was one of the first touch off the ethical debate around being paid to blog.

Tris has a quotable quote in his post:

"Just because you pay me, doesn't mean you've bought me."

Believe me, none of Marqui's bloggers were bought by us or sold out to us.  Because we demanded their complete transparency and honesty, and behaved that way ourselves.  And we posted every negative word they (and others who entered into the conversation) wrote about us personally, our program, our software, and our idea to pay bloggers. 

Sometimes it hurt like hell to read and respond to personal attacks and negative posts, especially since it was my entry into the blogosphere.  But here, 17 months later, I'm still participating in the conversations, and a firm believer in business blogging and the power of the blogosphere. 

Why?  It is self-cleansing.  Inauthentic, non-transparent posts are outed in seconds.  Because someone, somewhere will always know (and expose) the truth behind any situation. 

And as long as this debate continues, I will continue to be very proud of our part in it.   

Posted by at May 22, 2006

Comments

Tris Hussey email - blog.larixconsulting.com

Janet, Hear, hear! Marqui did a brave and bold thing and took a lot of crap for it. I thought it was a worthy experiement, and still do.

Now, a year down the line, I think bloggers are more ready for opportunities.

On reflection, I think you might have done better with a transparent "sponsored post" with your message, written by you, on the blogger's blog. But, hey, hindsight is 20/20.

Janet email - www.marqui.com/blog

That's an interesting concept - I wonder whether there might be bloggers who would be willing to adopt that kind of "pay to play" idea, and whether the sponsored posts would be skipped (like I do most ads in e-mail)?

Can you name any successful instances of folks doing "sponsored" posts?

Owen Lystrup email - intopr.prblogs.org

I know the site iFreelance.com, which I was going to in an attempt to find some freelance copyediting and copy writing jobs, and a lot of them were from companies or people paying individuals to write blogs or go to forums and comment regularly about a product or company.

At the time I never had an ethical struggle over it, though I never got any of those jobs either. But now that I reconsider, I see the dilemma.

I'm still not sure where I fall on this one.

I think I'll write a blog post about this. Ha!

Janet email - www.marqui.com/blog

There's a term called "astroblogging" that I heard from Paul Kedrosky. He blogged about it here: http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/002454.html.

Apparently it originated at LGF Watch, found here: http://lgfwatch.blogspot.com/2005/12/astroblogging.html

It sounds like the practice you're describing, Owen, is astroblogging. Unless the posts were specifically "sponsored" by the companies or individuals who were paying for freelancers to comment.

To me, that's unethical.

Tris Hussey email - blog.larixconsulting.com

I'm seeing a few sponsored posts here and there (I think Robin Good has them). The thing is, I think the blogosphere is ready for some experiements again. We won't know until we try.

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