John Batelle has responded to some of the criticisms of the technosphere to Federated Media’s hamfisted attempts at “Conversational Marketing”, and for the most part, doesn’t back down. Microsoft had no ill intent. Neither did bloggers involved. We should all just try and get used to things because we’re all taking part in how new media marketing is evolving.

Meh.

How about less mea culpa and more solutions?

I think that this whole hubaloo could have been resolved with a bit of smarter marketing — with the goal to making the conversations and interactions seem a little more natural, a little less forced, and therefore, preserve the integrity of all involved.

How could we do this?

Well, the real problem with Federated Media’s gaffe is *not* that they got Microsoft to host a discussion about something. Rather, the problem was how they did it. The result seemed artificial, forced, and it made some of these bloggers seem like shills because they were getting compensated — in a round about way — to talk about something that they might never have done in the first place.The solution?

If Microsoft really *is* interested in hosting a discussion, it might have succeeded by doing the following:

• Choosing a generic topic: Don’t choose a bloody slogan that everyone knows the sponsoring company is trying to promote. I don’t care if Microsoft’s motives were the purest and most noble — the very fact that it wanted people to talk about what “people ready” meant to them is essentially asking bloggers to talk about what Microsoft’s new slogan means to them. If Microsoft was *really* interested in hosting a conversation, why make it all about Microsoft? Better yet, why not be subtle about it? Why not host a conversation about, say, the importance of people — real, fallible, yet extraordinary individuals, who are helping you succeed? Sure, have the “People Ready” label splashed along the top, if you want. But start it off on the right foot by making it seem like you’re interested in a conversation that’s more about the topic and less about yourself.
• Getting natural opinion leaders to participate: Why not choose bloggers who have an opinion about that topic? The importance of people? Why not get bloggers who know a thing or three about human resources or the humanity behind what makes blogging work? Or how about a blogger or two who have overcome particular adversities without any extraordinary technology or know how? Look at the bloggers who are involved with the People Ready campaign. Do any of these bloggers fit that mold? Some of them do. Many of them don’t. That incongruency leads to question the integrity of the campaign and the bloggers involved. Why not reverse that by hiring voices that make sense as part of the conversation?
• Ensure that a diversity of opinion is cultivated: In choosing those voices, doesn’t it make sense to not only choose voices which are relevant, but voices which are also diverse? Here’s another way to foster integrity: making sure that you acknowledge dissenting voices, particularly ones which don’t like you or even what you do. Can you imagine how much credibility Microsoft would have gotten if it sought out bloggers who might have a history of, let’s say, of being Pro-Linux, and yet still having something interesting or important to say about being People Ready? Or, having the guts to bring out an opinion about how *linux* enabled a blogger to be “people ready”? How much integrity do you think Microsoft would have then?

In many ways, these kinds of tips are quite similar to what, I think, makes a panel at a conference work. Same principles here as it is there — you’re aiming for a lively conversation that sparks some healthy thought and debate. Even if there are sponsors for the entire *conference*, you don’t want the conference to seem like its content is unduly influenced *by* those sponsors.

You would never see a conference panel being sponsored by Microsoft, and having the panelists discussing what “People Powered” meant to them, now would you?

I mean, that would seem artificial, forced, and quite frankly, a little fake. It might make you question the conference, the sponsors, and even the panelists up there.

And with all due respect to Robert Scoble, this is more than an issue of disclosure, because when you do it smartly, the issue of disclosure is really irrelevant. That is, no one will ever question your integrity, or any undue bias, because the conversation will sound — and BE — natural. You’d have people who would naturally talk about the topic to be … well, talking about it. And like the best conversations, you’d have dissenting opinions — even perhaps, against the whole notion of what the topic is about.

Is this so hard? Does this take an enormous amount of guts to do — to potentially be responsible for a conversation that might spiral out of control? Where you don’t actually *have* much control? Where you might be on the receiving end of some bad publicity?

You know what?

That’s new media, folks. That’s blogging, that’s podcasting, that’s social networking all rolled into one.

You can’t control the conversation any more — but you can be part of it.

And hosting a natural one is one way that marketers can participate. There’s enormous power — and credibility there — for them … if they have the stomachs to do it, and do it the right way.

Valleywag has decided to initiate a “conversation” about a marketing vehicle that’s been going on for months, that involves many, many, A-listers, such as Om Malik and Mike Arrington, who use Federated Media to help serve ads. I’ll be honest — I noticed it months ago, but until Valleywag’s recent piece, I didn’t really put some of the dots together.

In a pinch, Federated Media has gotten their A-list roster to talk about, or participate in a “conversation” around topics that their advertisers sponsor. Case in point: Microsoft sponsoring a “conversation” around how “People Ready”, or Cisco sponsoring a “conversation” around “Human Network”. So, whats’s the “conversation” now?

• Valleywag alleges that this is no different than getting high paid actors to shill for companies or their products — and in this case, Big Bad Micro$oft.
• Neil Chase, of Federated Media, simply calls this the “birth” of Conversational Marketing, and congratulates himself (and Federated Media) in the smuggest way possible, by saying outright that “marketers to want to join the conversation … It can be done in ethical, responsible ways, and FM’s authors are among the first to figure out how to do it.”
• Om Malik finds that the questioning of his integrity is too sensitive an issue to be bandied about, and has simply dropped Federated Media advertising, and has apologized.
• Mike Arrington on the other hand, isn’t focusing on the conversational site, but how banner ads have now been served up with his quotes about the conversation. What’s wrong with banner ads, he asks — and chides Om Malik for backing down to Valleywag’s bullying.
• Fred Wilson (whose site also uses Federated Media), feels like this is a new world, and that he’s just happy to be participating in something new. Which somehow absolves him of any ethical actions (or inactions) he’s making. Right.

Well, this is all well and good.

I think none of them are getting the point, however.

At the heart of the matter isn’t the nuts and bolts of clicking, *nor* the fact, that, for example, any the A-listers are doing any outright shilling. You will not find, for example, Mike Arrington saying that “I love Microsoft”, or that “I made TechCrunch a Microsoft business”. Or, even, how their blogs will probably cover Microsoft.

(probably not consciously anyway).

And so, Valleywag is wrong in this way.

But its as Dave Winer has gotten out of John Batelle — Conversational Marketing … “its more nuanced” — and in fact, more insidious, I think.

Here’s why.

The conversations that Federated Marketing wants to host? Those are conversations around certain, specific, terms. In another time and place we’d call them “slogans”. What’s important, however, is that the companies which are sponsoring these A-listers to do off-blog “conversations”, are trying to “own” these slogans.

You can think of it as a branding exercise.

Microsoft wants to “own” the phrase, “People Powered”.

When you think of “People Powered”, Microsoft wants you to think of … well, Microsoft.

Its the same story with Cisco. It wants to own the phrase “The Human Network”, because it wants to associate it with all those feel-good qualities. When you hear “The Human Network”, it wants *you* to think of Cisco.

“Top of mind” qualities and all that.

The insidious part comes in next — that is, what Fred Wilson doesn’t seem to get, what Om Malik seems to be worried about implicitly without perhaps understanding why, and what Mike Arrington doesn’t seem to be focusing on.

(and perhaps what Neil Chase is so damn smug about).

Can I digress for a second?

Blogs are extensions of their blog owners and the bloggers who write there. I’ve often been asked about what I think about the buying and selling of blogs. Well, its an interesting business, but I think its terribly hard to separate the blog owner from the blog itself. When you buy a blog, unless the original author is coming with it, its hard to tell if the audience will continue because they were only reading for the blog author in the first place. Sure content is important, but so is his or her voice. Their style of doing things. Stuff only that they might know. And in that way, blogs are intimately related to their blog authors.

Back to the conversation at hand.

What’s insidious about things is that Federated Media feels good about hosting a “conversation” about a topic that is trying to be owned by a company. Bloggers might feel that since they’re not actually talking about it on their blogs, it somehow removes them from the connection. But it doesn’t. Especially if you talk about your blogging company as part of the conversation.

Yes, conversational marketing is ‘new’, but it has its roots in exactly what Nick Denton is clumsily alluding to.

Bloggers are not shilling outright for General Wallington’s Tincture of Rattlesnake (good for all of your ills), but what they are doing is indirectly lending their persona’s and their brands towards a concept — an idea and *phrase* — that another company is *trying* to own.

What’s the problem in that?

Only that if that these bloggers weren’t somehow compensated to do so, none of these bloggers would have initiated, or willingly participated in such an artificial conversation.

So, its almost like a company has come along and sponsored a conversation, right?

In principle, this is nothing different than PayPerPost.

Of course, the nuts and bolts are totally different. With PayPerPost, you are supposed to write an article *on* your site, and yes, there’s the whole bugaboo of having the article be positive, in-post disclosure and all of that.

Needless details.

At the end of the day, PayPerPost sells itself to its advertisers as being able to generate Buzz. All of the paid posting sites do. The fact you also get inbound links is a bit of a “secondary” benefit (that isn’t directly or primarily) sold [although its a great one from an SEO point of view]. With PayPerPost, or ReviewMe, advertisers can, essentially, buy blogs to try and initiate buzz.

Which is really what conversations are.

At its heart, the advertiser here is Microsoft. The want to create a conversation, not around its site, or around a product, but around a more nebulous concept. A phrase. A term. The Microsoft brand. So, it hosts a conversation, and pays, in a round about way, bloggers to write about that concept.

And in so doing, those bloggers are lending a part of themselves, a little bit of their authority, which is implicitly manifested in what they know, how they’ve gotten to be successful — but explicitly manifested by their blogs — to that idea.

Its more nuanced, for sure.

But its also more insidious.

Because I’ll wager that *none* of those bloggers even know what their contribution to a sponsored conversation even *means* (although I suspect that Om Malik might know): that A-list bloggers have a price. It is possible to pay for them to not only serve your ad, but to start a conversation *around* an idea. An idea that you’re trying to own.

They might not be explicitly endorsing that idea, but that very fact — that you can, in fact, purchase a conversation with the biggest players in the industry around an idea that you are trying to own — is the whole point. That they’re not doing it on their own blogs is immaterial, because they *are* their blogs, and when they lend their name and their idea to the conversation, its only bolstering that fact when they mention their experiences WITH their own blogs.
John Batelle’s right. Its not black and white. And for Federated Media, this is smart. Look at how much Buzz they’re getting.

On the other hand, I do think that, in principle, this is really no different than PayPerPost — as a purchasable tool to promote buzz. I’ve said for a long time that I’ve felt ambivalent about the issue, except where the future is for this kind of phenomenon.

Mike Arrington and now, Fred Wilson, and in the past, vapidly, by Amanda Congdon — they all agree on one thing. Blogging is “new”, and they feel that bloggers are not accountable to the same kind of standards that normal journalists are because its a different medium. Perhaps a self correcting one. One where the conversation is important, and not, perhaps, the connections *behind* the conversation. Or that they’re more important, but that as long as you’re willing disclose all should be forgiven.

Well, the funny thing is that it is exactly the spirit of being different is exactly what’s driving the paid posting phenomenon. And paid buzz to another degree. Mashable asked me what my 5 predictions for 2007 were? Its that the paid posting phenomonon was only going to go on the increase. And I stick to that position half way into the year, but I’ll broaden it to mean “paid posting as a means to generate buzz”. Paid buzz is something that is clearly expanding, and its something that’s so insidious that the folks who are involved with it, I think, don’t even know what they’re actually doing.

And as a parting shot, do *I* think there’s anything wrong with it?

Not really.

But if you’re going to do it, you should know about the association, the connection, that’s made in your readers mind about what you’re doing. When you are compensated, in a round about way, to participate in a conversation about a topic that another company is trying to own — in a conversation that you would never otherwise participate in? There’s a connection there. Its not as flagrantly obvious as you shilling for their products or services. John Batelle is right that way.

But there is a connection nonetheless.

And a judgement.

That your opinions — at least your ability to *start* a conversation (and what are blogs, but conversations) have a price. And that’s not such a bad thing, necessarily.

Just don’t castigate other bloggers or other industries when they try and do the same thing, but in a different way.