Pete Wright of PayPerPost tries to defend the covert and deceptive marketing platform he is building at PayPerPost on his blog. I respond in his comments, but also wanted to post my thoughts here as well.
So folks ask me why I care and why I take such offense to people doing covert and deceptive marketing on blogs. There are a couple of reasons:
1. I love the blogosphere and everything it stands for. I love, love, love the transparency, authenticity, honesty, and passion found on blogs. It's unique in the media landscape, and as someone who's fallen in love with it and helped it grow, I feel the need to defend it from the forces of evil.
2. You have to stop cancer quickly or it spreads. Too many smart folks I know look at things like PayPerPost and say to me "oh, those losers are never going to get anywhere... why waste your time." A couple of folks I know are not going to blog about it because they are friendly with the VCs and don't want to ruin their relationships. Well, PayPerPost has raised millions of dollars from a very big name: Tim Draper. That validates them big time. They can walk into advertising agencies and brand managers offices based on Tim's name. Now, I think most marketers will laugh them right out of town, but if no one speaks up and Tim's voting for this service with his very large checkbook then these guys might get some traction. They get traction WITH THEIR CURRENT MODEL and they undermine the blogsophere. (NOTE: I'm hoping they take a stand against covert marketing and change their current "market forces" excuse).
I have to ask Tim Draper: how can you endorse deceptive marketing? This isn't the TD I know... I know you're "just and investor" and it's "the entrepreneur's company" (and all those other lame VC excuses), but you gotta step up to the plate and tell us if you condone deceptive marketing. Do you?!?!
Side Note: I'd really love to hear what smart folks like Seth Godin, Fred Wilson, Adam Curry, Mark Cuban, Esther Dyson, John Battelle, Cory Doctorow, Xeni Jardin, Rafat Ali, Joseph Jaffe, Brian Alvey, Kevin Rose, Tim O'Reilly, Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis, Steve Rubel, Dan Gillmor, and Nick Denton think of covert marketing coming to the blogosphere. Heck, I'd even love to hear what Valleywag has to say! :)
----------------------------
Some quick corrections to your post.
You say: "If you go to Jason's site, you'll find, as I just did, that he 'recommends' no less than 10 products/companies on the side bar of his blog."
My response: I get paid NOTHING for those recommendations. I do them to share with my questions, comments, and concerns with my friends.
There is nothing COVERT about what I'm doing there. What PayPerPost does is enable folks to get paid for doing COVERT marketing.
No one likes to be tricked or deceived--do you?
You said: That's including the 'powered by' link, and not including the HUGE props to Netscape Video, which of course he has a financial interest in.
My response: The syndicated headlines from Netscape are voted up by users. That has nothing to do with the issue at hand. There is nothing DECEPTIVE about linking to the top 10 headlines on digg, NYTimes, Engadget, Boingboing, etc.
You said: Now, as for having 'nothing to gain' by going after PayPerPost, just wander over to Weblogs Inc and click on Marketers More Info. Now Weblogs Inc...
My response: I just looked at the sad, sad advertisers using PayPerPost. We don't sell ads to losers like this. We sell ads to the top 100 advertisers on the Internet. PayPerPosts link farm and covert marketing tools will NEVER put a dent into high-end display advertising. Advertisers like Apple, Microsoft, etc. are not so desperate that they have to pay for people to blog about them-far from it in fact. As far as I'm concerned PayPerPost can keep their loser advertising base. I don't want to-and would never--work with that level of covert marketer.
You said: WebLogs Inc markets products through blogs, so does PayPerPost. Difference? We're cheaper.
My response: No, the difference is that we don't allow deceptive advertising and you do.
All advertisement are clearly labeled as advertisements on our blogs. PayPerPost on the other hand creates the marketplace that allows people to get paid for DECEIVING their audience.
No one likes to be deceived--do you?
You said: We're a marketplace - we put advertisers in touch with bloggers. How is that deceptive?
My response: It is deceptive because you don't have any controls in your marketplace to fight deception. Google forces advertisers to carry the "Ads by Google" line for a reason. The NYTimes, Boingboing, Federated Media, Gawker, and WeblogsInc (and just about anyone with any level of integrity in this business) put systems in place to prevent COVERT and DECEPTIVE marketing. We ban advertisers who do bad things-not enable and profit from them like PayPerPost does.
You guys are making a choice to allow covert marketing. You could say on the site today that:
a) all paid posts must start with a note explaining that they are paid
and
b) be transparent on your site about the bloggers, blogs, blog posts, advertisers, and ad campaigns that are involved.
You are not doing this because we both know that you would have no advertisers left if you did.
The bottom line is that people chose their lot in life. You guys have taken the low road and you are falling back on the very lame excuse of "market forces" to determine your ethics.
You guys know in your hearts that deceptive marketing is, in fact, evil. I know there is some god in you--I can sense it. Take the high road. Sure, it's not as easy to be one of the good guys, but you will sleep better at night and you will get much further.
Ten years from now do you want to be remembered as the place were covert marketers got their claws into the blogosphere and undermined the integrity of good bloggers everywhere? Well, in the .0001% chance you succeed at what you're doing that will be the result-people will lose their faith in blogs. We spent years creating the blogosphere and educating the market of the value blogs-I'm not going to let you walk in here and destroy years of work.
You guys need to take a company retreat and think about what you want to be in life: evil, covert marketers or innovative participants in the blogosphere.
Right now you're a cancer.
More on the PayPerPost Debate (or "Tim Draper where are you!?!?!)
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Reader Comments
(Page 1 of 2)2. Great post Jason...
I can see that between you and the guys from PPP there is one huge difference. One focuses on the end-user, the other on the advertiser...
I'm interested to find out what type of advertisers will choose this platform (and for what target group!)...
3. Now honestly, no matter how much I do share your idea in this matter Jason, I do think enough has been said about PPP.
But what about the (cheap) sheep willing to whore their blog for a couple of bucks? Things like PPP, and also multi-national corpos are only possible because there are enough of braindeads out there, willing to do everything for only some bucks.
Economically PPP is a great concept and WILL succeed. They have a big advantage on other services if one day Google will really punish adlinks.
But where do you run your errands? WalMart? I don't, I go to the local grocery store and refuse to support the wage standard and buying policy of huge corpos like WalMart. I am sure if everyone did this our economy would be better.
But maybe, working at AOL, you are not the guy to discuss those things with. ;-)
I don't blame the people behind PPP for having a concept which might make it economically one day. I don't like it, but if I needed SEO I'ld surely invest $2500 to obtain 1000 links.
But I deleted every 'PPP blogger' from my feed roll. ;-)
4. I'm impressed, Jason is really serious about this.
I remember engadget turning down a Siemens Mobile offer for a paid trip / stay to Cebit in exchange for coverage.
..and a policy at engadget not to keep any gadgets.
So Jason has a really good track record here.
Unfortunately some people Jason named have not, they just see the new media as a vehicle to make money the shady way .
Posted at 4:30PM on Oct 8th 2006 by Klaus
5. Jason: Just as I suggested on another blog, you'll do better providing experienced advice to bloggers than you will by name-calling and fear-mongering. People don't respond well to bullying, especially bloggers.
I co-invested with Tim on PayPerPost and have read your FUD-slinging this week. I've also watched calacanis.com Alexa traffic ranking climb from ~20,000 to ~12,000 as you latched onto the PayPerPost buzz.
This isn't as sinister as you like to suggest. It is, however, a debate that has raged for centuries: who controls otherwise legal behavior, the individual or a governing entity. In this case, the individual is the blogger/photographer/videographer/MySpacer/podcaster and you are elevating PayPerPost to a government entity who must dictate behavior. I agree with many of the blogging disclosure practices you, me and others recommend for posties. However, I stop at believing a private company like PayPerPost must tell bloggers how to engage their audience.
The PPP platform leaves bloggers free to post on what they want, how they want -- allowing them to take opportunities that fit their audience, interests or style. If you disagree with their choices, you are free to complain to them -- although you have no knowledge of the pre-existing relationship they have with their audiences. However, demanding that PayPerPost act as a socialist governing entity goes against the free expression roots of the blogosphere. The unit of influence/power in this medium is the individual -- unless of course, you endeavor to buy a bunch of digg users for broader infuence/power ;-) I know putting power in the hands of the masses is scary, but that's the future of this medium we love.
6. Thanks Dan! Very well said.
Posted at 5:11PM on Oct 8th 2006 by Peter Wright
7. >The platform leaves bloggers free to post on what they want, how they want -- allowing them to take opportunities that fit their audience, interests or style.
Where have I heard this before? Ah right, on Adam Curry's podcast, Curry explaining Podshow's advertising model.
Posted at 5:13PM on Oct 8th 2006 by Klaus
8. Bloggers would be writing about something they may or may not feel very passionate about at all.
The problem couldn't be any more obvious than that.
Is that fair to the reader? In all honesty, the advertisers get what they pay for, and the bloggers get paid for a certain service... all that adds up just fine.
But the real travesty is to the reader.
9. Adams: your comment is why it's worthwhile to move beyond spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt -- if we want to talk about reality. Contrary to your assumption that readers lose, my research has found that postie audiences grow after finding PPP's 'marketplace of ideas' -- probably due to adopting a more diverse set of topics to talk about, blogging more often, striving to increase their quality ratings (similar to eBay buyer/seller feedback), learning blogging best practices from the large posties community and, for some, designing a more aesthetically pleasing site because they no longer need pennies from AdSense/banners/other to support their blogging habit.
The result is a win-win-win for readers, bloggers and advertisers. The biggest winner is the blogosphere as a whole (unless you feel some people aren't worthy of blogging), because it brings more knowledge, experiences, opinions and voices to the net...that shift of power to the masses underpins much of the noise from the few who are trying desparately to slow the dilution of their power.
Thanks for the continued focus on readers -- they are the key constituent for any blogger and one I think about daily...
10. I interviewd Tedy Murphy, PPP founder here on my blog. 7 questions that might help feed the fire.
http://www.revenews.com/jimkukral/archives/002355.html
He equates what PPP does to the same thing as Engadget.
Posted at 8:59PM on Oct 8th 2006 by jim kukral
11. Jason - I agree with your position. But I still want to know whether you consider paying your "loyal" users $$$ to generate content is also a deception. where Pete and you defer is the degree of deception.
sorry to be harsh but thats just the way I see it. Does the AOL service reveal who the users are who are on your "payroll" - I think if you really consider yourself fair, you should reveal on the user profile as to who is being paid? Frankly, I would suggest that you dont remain in the grey area, you need to be white (like YouTube which doesnt need to pay anyone to upload videos) or black (like PPP). Staying in the grey and pointing fingers at others who are taking this paid business to another level, doesnt prove that you are being totally honest.
Posted at 9:34PM on Oct 8th 2006 by Anil
12. Anil: There is some discrepancy in what you said about paying users to "generate content," because Jason doesn't pay them to do that. He pays them to find content generated by other people.
And that in itself wouldn't be deception unless they were getting paid to pimp certain content.
13. Jason,
Im one of your fans, but I have to agree with Comment #11. One of the reasons I enjoy your blog so much is because of your hyper-entrepreneurial spirit. I loved how you inserted good ole fashioned capitalism into the Digg community model. Yet here you are making a judgement call on PPP based on the fact that you love the way the blogosphere works NOW. I don't know if I like PPP but I love that they are challenging a sacred institution, and the fact that it rocks your world doesnt make it "evil".
14. Very well written. Emotions driving the fingers to the keys. I couldn't believe this site got funded.
Posted at 10:12PM on Oct 8th 2006 by Andrew
15. Anil/Adams: I don't know enough about the Calacanis content-pimping controversy you guys are discussing.
Are you saying that Calacanis pays people to pimp content? If so, does he have a mechanism for a pimp/vote to disclose any conflicts when someone sees the pimped content -- for example, if they were pimping an article by/about Calacanis or a company he or Netscape/AOL has interests in? Before I jump to any conclusions, I'd like any details you can share on this content-pimping -- all help appreciated!
BTW, is this the same content-pimping controversy where Jason had this to say just a couple months ago?
"2. The media elite are *very* threatened by this idea--just as they were threatened by the concept of paid bloggers. Why, because by making a wider talent pool drops the pay rates they're accustom to getting. There are thousands of great writers who got their start by free blogging who are now getting paid. Those new folks have lower pay expectations and the $1-a -word crowd was really pissed off about it. I remember someone in the stock photography business who got upset by me offering my pictures for free for commercial use. His problem was that my photos were as good as stock in many cases, and I was gonna take money away from the stock business. You know what, I don't care! It's *my* work and I can do what *I* want with it. This is the new world we've built here, and talent rises, wins, and gets to decide for THEMSELVES if they want to get paid or not. It's not Mike Arrington's choice, it's the content creators choice. For photos and blogging I choose to not get paid--for some of my others skills I want to get paid.
The talent pool is bigger and more open today and that benefits the little guy and it scares the heck out of the big guy. I love it!
The irony of ironies is that the so-called meritocricy of Web 2.0 is the most upset about this concept. They will fall back on the "you're corrupting community by paying them" line of BS, but don't fall for it."
16. Lots of tempest in this teapot, Jason. In my opinion, PayPerPost is no different to many other online traffic monetizing venues, and it's hard for me to understand how it's different from, say, the thousands of bloggers who have their writing influenced by the desire to attract valuable contextual advertising (think Google AdSense).
The big difference with PPP is that Peter and his team are being *honest* and *straightforward* about their structure, rather than hiding it behind some sort of curtain or parading it about as some sort of moral or ethical issue.
If you were to examine PayPerPost's actual offers, you'd find that it's actually up to the *advertiser* to decide whether they want to pay for coverage, any coverage, or whether they want to constrain it to positive coverage only. All PPP's doing is creating a marketplace, just as eBay creates a marketplace but shouldn't logically be held accountable for auctions that are really just advertisements for online stores, say.
Further, every time I read comments like "bloggers whoring to make a buck" I feel like I've bumped into a member of the self-appointed Blog Police, and it's daft. There's no "industry standard" definition of what a blog actually is, and at the end of the day isn't it just a publishing tool anyway?
Are you really going to say that people like Robert Scoble who receives free stuff and writes about 'em (with disclosure, as I do too) are whores and are not really bloggers? Or are you going to say that if he's *paid*, even with a free dinner, then he's crossed the line? Who are you, who are your commentators, to decide that's the proper definition of a "pure" or "real" or "legit" blog anyway?
It's easy to take potshots at companies exploring the edges of the blogging phenomenon when you're not trying to desperately figure out how to turn your passion for writing, communicating and blogging into at least a modest income stream.
Posted at 10:49PM on Oct 8th 2006 by Dave Taylor
17. I agree with all of this post, except for the suggestion that this sort of thing has any chance of gaining traction and spreading. The fact that PayPerPost has received a few million from a respected venture firm is *not* validation of the company, the business model, or the "space" for that matter. Run down the list of the top ten VCs in the country and you'll find a stinker investment or two on almost everyone's roster. I agree that it's a bit shocking a VC *would* fund something like this, but perhaps that reflects more on the person who greenlighted this deal than anything else.
18. I agree with Jason. PayPerPost is junk. Look at this press release, and then look at how the top earning PayPerPost "Postie" works
http://payperpost.com/press/blogger_reaches_one_thousand
http://www.simplekindoflife.com/category/buy-me/
Posted at 1:06AM on Oct 9th 2006 by new blogger
19. A cancer?
I'm sorry but I just stopped listening to you. You are now in the land of ad hominem and irrational name-calling. This feels like either a complete overreaction or an effort to redefine the PPP model in an image you want. Whatever it is, when you call something a cancer, you are not serious about wanting a conversation.
DnW
Posted at 2:10AM on Oct 9th 2006 by Drumsnwhistles
20. RE: My response: The syndicated headlines from Netscape are voted up by users.
^^ who are being PAID (by Jason) to meet a voting quota. Who were stolen from Digg because the site couldnt attract those users on its own.
Again, I say your campaign on Integrity is BS.
Posted at 6:33AM on Oct 9th 2006 by Lynn Terry
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1. Amen Jason! PayPerPost is absurd - it promotes lying to our readers, and the blogosphere can't and won't take it. If it did, it would completely undermine the blogosphere itself and totally change what we've come to stand for.
We discussed the PayPerPost debacle on the most recent episode of PodDev, the tech podcast I co-host. { http://poddev.comitar.com/2006/10/08/poddev-3/ }
Also, I submitted that link to Netscape and tried to find nifty buttons to put on our site (e.g. "Scape this story", Vote on Netscape", etc.) but you guys don't have any! You should get some.
Posted at 2:50PM on Oct 8th 2006 by Chris