No, seriously — great article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, that as far as I can see, got no coverage in the corners of the blogosphere that I usually frequent. It covers how big business (in this case, big media) acknowledges the influence and power of blogging and bloggers in informing professiona media outlets, and sometimes, the public at large. But more importantly, its an article which discusses in some depth how some companies are trying to win the affectations of bloggers by showering them with gifts and freebies, in hopes to a) get some coverage and b) get favourable coverage.

The Payola Debate Isn’t New

The issue around payola / blogola isn’t a new one, and has been hotly debated for a few months since PayPerPost and its many breathren have appeared.

On one side, you have bloggers who try and stand by their principles and suggest that the most important part of their blog isn’t for sale — their opinion. On the other hand, you have other bloggers who find that there isn’t an ethical quandry, and are happy to monetize their blogs any way they can.

The WSJ article, I think, highlights the dilemma of the latter kind of bloggers and what it means to be a blogger in general.

Blogging is an independent activity, where your actions are governed by your own sense of morals, ethics, and values. Unlike reporters or journalists you don’t report to anyone, and no one proof reads your material. You’re not beholden to any set of standards except those that you set yourself, and those that the blogging community that you’re part of also expects of you. It is also informed by many other kinds of factors, such as the kind of environment you live in — online and off — and other ‘mundane’ things, such as your own financial situation.

When blogging was a niche phenomenon, all of this was quaint, but of no real importance.

Now that blogging (by some) has been recognized to be a force amongst PR folk and media players, the conundrum is one where you have some bloggers who own influential blogs online, but live humble, modest, and unassuming lives off-line. These same bloggers are being targeted by multi-national firms who are literally swimming in cash.

Can anyone say “shooting fish in a barrel?”

When Big Media Does Payola, Do Bloggers Stand a Chance?

Of course it would be the easiest, smartest, and most cost-effective strategy to target bloggers. Public relations folk of all stripes must be salivating at the prospect.

Compared to journalists who have years of training — and more importantly, exposure — regarding double dealings, attempts to influence their opinion, and perhaps are used to working in an enviroment where there are controls on how they *could* be influenced, there are no such restrictions on bloggers.

And I don’t think that there ever could be.

The WSJ goes onto describe how the producers of the show “The New Adventures of Old Christine” feted a number of mommy bloggers by flying them out to the show, giving them freebies, and got a chance to meet Julia Louis-Dreyfuss. Now, it just happens to be that this particular show has actually received some critical acclaim.

But what happened if it was a dud?

I’m not singling out Mommy-bloggers now.

Could *any* blogger of average and modest means, who has never been to a movie set in their entire lives, *ever* right an unbiased review of what happened? How could their opinions of the show NOT change, and for the better?

If Microsoft decided to fly me and my family out to Seattle for a weekend to tell me how great Vista was, and got me to try out a bunch of products, coupled with a photo op with Bill himself — would that affect *me*?

I’ll be honest — I don’t see how it couldn’t.

So what now? What does the future hold? If the influence of bloggers and the opinions and news and what not doesn’t change, will we see a return to a payola system whereby the media — in this case, bloggers — are now be in the back-pocket of companies big and small, in return for freebies, invitations, and the cachet of being “in” with the industry?

I don’t know.

The better question, as I have posed in some of my older posts, is what about the checks — what about the balances?

The Single Factor That Stops Blogola … Is Pretty Ineffective

If bloggers find themselves in these positions where they can’t but help but find themselves under the svengali-like influence of Free Stuff and Insider Access, what could possibly make them do a double check?

Some of them will have an internal barometer, and will continue to blog true to their heartrs anyway. Or, not take companies up on their offers. I anticipate these bloggers to be shunned at large by public relations folk.

The rest? It will largely depend on the response and reactions of their own peers, and most importantly, their own readers. If their own readers don’t know, or if they know, but don’t care, that their favourite blogger was feted at a huge party for that product opening, and — suprise, suprise, you see a favourable review the next day for adult diapers on a tech blog, then, much to the chagrin of some idealist a-list bloggers, nothing will happen.

If the blogger’s community of readership deems it “ok” then things will carry on.

The kicker with this? Unless the percieved transgressions are particularly large, or, unless the site itself is large, I don’t think “community reaction” for any given blog will be large enough to cause *any* kind of change.

Is that a little jaded of me?

I don’t think so.

While its a bit of a stretch, you can look to any number of medium sized blogs that, for example, do paid reviews. Their audience *knows* that the review is paid for — and in some cases, at rent-money levels. While some or most of them are thorough, you can’t help but wonder how much influence the fact that its been paid changes the opinion, though. Not only because of the literal aspect of money changing hands (and the law of reciprocity — its Cialdini, read it), but because for many of these bloggers their ability to get *future* review me type gigs is dependent on writing good reviews now.

Has the audience for *any* of those blogs changed? Have they all left en masse? Declared that getting something in exchange for writing about that something is a terrible violation of blogging’s ethics?

For the large part, the answer is a resounding “no”.

I won’t single out any blogs, but its easy to check them out. Review-Me is a good example because you can look through a marketplace of blogs who are selling their opinions posts.

1. Go to Review-Me.com
2. Search through the Marketplace for blogs
3. Sort or filter according to the highest payout per post
4. Check out the first ten blogs or so, and plug their URL’s into Alexa.

What you’ll find is that none of them have suffered any relative change in their traffic.

Now, granted, their is some self-selection here. Clearly the ones which are *successful* at this, that is, whose audience doesn’t already mind, will continue being in the market place.

But having said that, I cannot recall a single example where someone *had* tried, and it *did* result in a huge change in their readership.

So — long post, but here’s the take home message.

The Time Is Now for Companies To Exploit Bloggers

Blogging’s influence has outstripped many blogger’s own ability to withstand the influence of companies, whether it be free things, swag, access or what have you. This will make it easier for companies to buy opinion, and in fact, such a marketplace, you could argue, is in its infancy *already*. The *fact* that many bloggers have signed up for such a marketplace, is, I think, indicative of the fact that their own financial situations are not a “mundane” issue at all. Furthermore, and the most important factor which might act as a check and balance, has, so far, been a non-issue.

Its a pretty pessimistic view on things, but also, I think, a realistic view on things, and one geared for the short term. Who knows how things will be in 1, 5, or 10 year’s time? By that time, blogging as a form of media will mature — as will the commensurate experience of the bloggers themselves.

By that time will reader’s expectations have changed? Will the expectations of bloggers change? Will the expectations of their peer group have changed?

Perhaps.

And perhaps these kinds of shennanigans won’t be tolerated. Or, pehaps they’ll be de rigeur.

But in the short term, I think this is a phenomena that will continue to grow unabated and largely unfettered. Some bloggers will stand out and take a stand. Many of them, I suspect are in financially independent position to do so, or, perhaps, are industry professionals *already* where the allure of industry access holds no attraction.

But for the rest … well, if I was a Public Relations professional I’d be dancing a little jig while I could.

Update: Looks like a few others *have* weighed on the issue:

• Jeff Jarvis via BuzzMachine covered it with his own perspective as he started Entertainment Weekly
• The guy who heads who used to head up Lulu‘s communication department gives his own take on things (its a good thing)
• Gawker also mentions how it has “some” sort of policy towards this kind of thing

Cue the sound of crickets … now.

Fine.  Since there’s a bit of silence, I’ve got a few questions for you all (all three and a half of you).

• Is any one else tired of the seemingly perpetual outrage at the idea of paid postings? 
• Is anyone else vaguely amused that the blogospheric indignity of it all is only fueling MORE free marketing for Ted Murphy and his gang of posties? 
• And is anyone else just a little bit angered about the delicious double standard some bloggers hold about themselves and others?

I don’t think anyone has done a better job about articulating what I mean by the latter than Seth Finklestein. 

But note the language: not “classy”, “sidewalk hookers”, vs “I’m a capitalist”. It’s basically, again, they are blue-collar, we are white-collar. I think “I’m a capitalist” in this context really means: “Despite my relatively well-off status, economically I still need to convert social relationships into a commercial context” (which should be acceptable) – i.e. doing it ultimately for commercial purposes, no matter how much one may seem to to be in it for a purely social relationship. Which is of course breaking the marketing of human connections.

I wrote about it yesterday as well — but let’s face it.  Its OK for A-list bloggers to monetize their blogging relationships by being paid to talk at conferences, or merely to be paid for their blogging activities as a function of their influence …

But its NOT ok for bloggers without influence, capital, notoriety, or celebrity to monetize the relationships THEY have with their readers — even with they’re disclosing it?

Bloggers who poo-poo Scoble and PayPerPost need to take a step back, stop reading about their own hype in the MSM, and take a good hard look at reality.  Because its slapping you in the face.

The ideals of transparency, authenticty, and engagement are just that.  Ideals.  But the only bloggers who are pure enough to have the moral authority to tsk-tsk anyone are those who would NEVER take ANY money for ANY kind of blogging activity.

And I don’t know of any blogger of any substance who fits into that category.

So why are we holding bloggers up to this impossible standard, where they are supposed to be better, more rigorous, and held to a higher ethical standard than seemingly everyone else?

Its because blogging’s roots, probably much like the rest of the Internet, pre 1995, had fairly honest, altruistic roots, free of any commercial influence — like the Internet, pre 1995, because it was so small that no one bothered to try and monetize it.

The ideals of transparency and authenticty were self-evident because everyone was blogging for themselves and their friends.  

And that’s the irony, isn’t it.

Transparency and authenticity (and engagement) are buzzwords precisely BECAUSE blogging has gotten so big that when other people, and more importantly businesses, try and “get it”, they need to be reminded of what honest conversation is like.

And that’s the point.

Blogging, as an entity, has gotten so big so fast that its influential.  And its important and big enough that people are willing to pay bloggers for their time, their influence, and their readership.  Who reaps the biggest rewards?  Its early adherents.  The popular.  The notorious.  The connected.  

Who doesn’t?  Those bloggers who are starting out, “sharecropping” for outfits like PayPerPost. 

The very fact that Bob Scoble was crying foul at the fact that PodTech wasn’t getting links was a hilarious reminder that when you’re starting out, as many bloggers do, they are at the mercy of others.  And even when you think you’ve got great content — and the connections and juice to back it up — you’re still at the mercy of others.

Bloggers need to remind themselves that, independent of how good your blog is, there very much is a class system in the blogosphere.  Only the truly naive would believe otherwise.  

Blogging has finally gotten big enough that companies are willing to pay cash money for our attention.  And all bloggers deserve some share of that — ESPECIALLY, if they’re already disclosing the hell out of their blogs.

Sure, they won’t be the most highly regarded pieces, particularly if they do it far too regularly.  Will there be questions of integrity and cries of “shill”?  Unless they’re fairly big players, probably not.

But you know what?  That’s their problem, and its something they’ll have to solve if they want their blog to get anywhere.

Just like whatever Bob Scoble does is his problem — and we should let him worry about what he does, and not about how it affects the rest of the blogosphere.  After all, the champions of blogospheric purity can put down their swords, because here’s the thing: the blogosphere’s already changed.  And it changed long before paid posting took place.  It changed when the first blogger took his (or her) first payment for their first work.

And there is no guarantee that was disclosed.

For the impatient, Nick is basically saying that if links are the currency of search engine optimization, SEO consultants ought to work to create excellent “link bait” so people will naturally link to their sites, and therefore, naturally, and organically, improve their search rankings — rather than begging to be linked to.

You know what? It makes sense to me.  In fact, its always made sense to me.

Linking to intersting, link-worthy content?

What an idea. 

What’s confusing is why the jargon-y type of term like “Linkbait” is still being used. I mean, why don’t we just call a cow a cow, and call it “creating great content”?

Brian over at Copyblogger mentioned as much a few weeks ago, but creating compelling, great, original, newsworthy content will grab attention, and by definition be link worthy, and therefore, get links. And it can be all kinds of content.

News.

Research.

Reviews.

Tips.

Lists.

Interviews.

They *all* count.

Stuff that doesn’t get linked to? The mediocre stuff. The echo chamber qualifying pap that stands for content. Dry, unintelligible prose. Stuff that means nothing to no one in particular.

Or, all of those things I mentioned done in a boring way.

Boring interview questions. Reviews that add nothing to the conversation. Lists everyone knows about.  Research on a question no one cares about. Tips about stuff a six year old could deduce. News that is stale.

If we all took a minute to create something fresh and interesting, and do so frequently, you’ll increase your own chance of being linked to. And it doesn’t necessarily mean pandering to your audience, (geeks love Apple, girls, linux, and the Daily Show — why don’t we combine all four for an unbeatable combination! — the fact you’re selling laptop cases? Who cares!) or necessarily acquiring the services of high priced SEO consultants.

They’ve got their role when you don’t have the time or inclination. But if you’ve got more time than money, grab your own blog at any number of free places, roll up your sleeves, rub those brain cells together, and start writing.

Sure, it might take a few tries, but you know what?

You just might surprise yourself.

So to any readers who have been with blog for any length of time, you’ll recognize that one of my favourite punching bags topic, is how Digg says its doesn’t have a cabal of editors when it secretly does. In principle I understand why they say this — they have a button no other social bookmarking site does, and that’s the “bury” button. Sure, it creates problems (a la “Bury Brigade”), but I suspect its purpose is to allow individuals to police Digg itself.

If a site is crap for whatever reason, fine — bury it. In theory, it allows Digg to prevent itself from being “gamed” and all kinds of things — provided the Diggers don’t want to be gamed in the first place.

However, its not perfect — even with Editorial (Spam killing) back up. As Jason Calacanis and Mat Ingram said yesterday, all kinds of crap get through to main stream media all the time, even with proper editors.

Having said that, I think its time for Digg to reconsider its policy, in light of Nial’s Kennedy’s work that shows Spammers are getting the upper hand on social bookmarking sites — and in particular, Digg [I agree -- its the "must read" of the day].

He discovered that over the weekend a splogger got a post to hit the front page. As of its current counting that’s over 800 diggs. Nial found this out through a bunch of methods, but you can clearly see that his “Geek’s Way to Losing Weight” is clearly out of place on the blog which if flogging dental products and dental resources.

I think this has to be a call for Digg to change its ways and employ some better method of control. Unlike mainstream news media, when ‘mistaken’ news items get coverage it rarely leads directly to more sales for the target of that news coverage — but as I’ve mentioned in the past, when you game Digg there are direct financial benefits, and they are not insignificant. Even if you calculate the “opportunity savings” through an equivalent amount of Adwords placement, how much do you think 70 – 100 000 uniques over 24h is going to save?

Its easy to do the math — at a minimum of 0.05 per click, that’s $5000 for 100 000 uniques.

That’s money, man!

And of course, that doesn’t take into account the cash they’re directly making from adsense that’s splashed on to their site, or the signups from their affiliate programs.

Digg’s lack of editorial control is allowing spammers, sploggers, floggers, and goggers to not just take advantage of a system, but game it for MONEY.

And as Nial’s article ends, he makes a good point that Jason Dowdell mentioned off blog a few months ago — what happens when top diggers sell their accounts for cash? Behind the scenes? Everyone knows that the likelihood of top digger’s submissions to reach the frontpage, independent of content, is higher — because of the algorithm (although recent changes made this tougher).

Bottom line is that Nial’s work has shed some stark light on what many of us haven’t had the time, balls, or energy to prove: spammers are making money off of Digg. Digg’s “bury” button isn’t quick enough to prevent front page spam from occurring, and spammers are cashing in. Digg should formalize some way of error checking now that its gotten to be a huge traffic machine, and it shouldn’t rely on Diggers to do this — for the simple reason that many of them do not read what they are digging. Sad — but true. Muhammad at themulife has been beating this drum for a long time.

Digg shouldn’t be cool with this – and its time someone challenged them on taking some responsibility for it.

UPDATE 1: Thanks to Steve for letting me know; Digg’s bury brigade has buried the hell out of this post in less than 90 minutes. Nice!

Ad spending topped 4 billion in the last quarter, but its not really news. Jason Calcanis goes on to describe the great new worlds in on-line advertising, and one of his commenters made the excellent point that on-line advertising offers the holy grail that off-line advertising can’t: trackability and accountability of every exposed individual to that advertising.

But it makes me yawn – here’s why.
Advertisers will flock to wherever there are people and eyeballs.  [More kids into games than comics?  Let's go to in-game impressions!]  As the adoption of the Internet grows world wide, and continues to do so — particularly with the penetration of broadband — more and more people will be spending time online.

And that doesn’t even take into account about how trends, opinions and rumours online affect what happens offline. Over time, and over the long run, the Internet is where Advertising companies need to be, because that’s where people will be.
What will this mean for Web2.0 types and bloggers? 

Only that the future is encouraging for the “freemium” model that so many are working on — but that they need to be flexible and lean enough to weather dips in advertising spending, because the ad companies will be back.  They have to be — unless people abandon the Internet altogether for something better.  With the un-economics of blogging and web2.0 properties this is probably do-able — since the costs are so low to generate and maintain many of these sites.  Which is probably UNLIKE other more traditional media properties that live on advertising.

What does this mean for Bloggers? Well, if your blog is accepted at BlogBurst, your blog’s content (that is, selected posts) could be up for syndication on on-line news sites to some pretty far away places — which is cool, I suppose. There’s always a thrill telling your friends and family “Hey, my blog is syndicated on the Ayre Daily Register!” But the other possibility is that it could be picked up by some pretty prominent media properties that Reuters now syndicates to already.

From Blogburst’s point of view they’ll either take the approach of signing up more bloggers to syndicate across a greater number of media properties — OR, they’ll start syndicating the existing blogs up across those newer properties; or probably, a blend of both.

If they take more of the first, however, it would have serious implications with their “compensation” strategy, as they continue to only reward the top100 blogs according to a “whoever has the most post views per month”. While its a good first step, I think that they need to make it more equitable for bloggers.

As it stands the vast majority of blogs are allowing newspapers to syndicate their content, effectively for free — and I don’t really buy the “branding” proposition that blogburst sells bloggers on; I have never gotten a single click through in the hundreds of post views on The Statesman, for example (except for the one I tested myself), and I can’t attribute any traffic on this site to my blogging offerings on The Statesman.

If you’re interested in blogging, social bookmarking, or traffic generation, this one’s for you!