PayPerPost: Another Chance To Monetize (And Destroy) Trust

Jason Calacanis has decided -- rightly, I believe -- to tilt at the PayPerPost payola scheme, and he has called on a long list of eminent figure in the web world to comment. Hmmm. Despite the fact that he and I were on the same side of a public debate about Marqui's payola project, he didn't include me in the list, for which I will forgive him, and invite myself to the party.

[from More on the PayPerPost Debate (or "Tim Draper where are you!?!?!)]

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! :)

I was surprsied to hear that Draper invested in PPP, and I agree with Jason that paying people to blog about (and link to) products without disclosure of the money involved is deceptive splogging. This is another attempt to monetize the implicit trust built into the blogosphere's atmosphere of trust: this only works so long as people believe that the links are honest. Once that trust is lost, the value of the links will plummet, from $7 or so, down to pennies, if that.

Who will be hurt? Well, we all will be, ultimately. The most well-known bloggers will reject this model. In fact, I wonder how longer it will be before someone creates a logo that we will start to use to identify ourselves as being independent of PayPerPost or any other payolaa scheme. It will be the bloggers with less-established reputations that will be damaged the most, since in a world filled with payola, readers will begin to distrust new writers recommending their favorite digital cameras or barbeque grills.

Pete Wright of PayPerPost takes great exception with Jason's comments, and tries to diminish the differences between advertisemenst and payola, but fails:

[from Strange new worlds, and programming languages...: Jason Calacanis and PayPerPost]

My concern is that they are doing deceptive advertising. [quoting Calacanis]

This is because currently we don't 'require' bloggers to disclose. But similarly we don't require bloggers to say what we tell them. Many of the ads on PPP are neutral and bloggers can say whatever the heck they want about the product or company. Just as I'm sure there are deceitful people in journalism, there is a risk that we would pick up a blogger that doesn't have any moral ethics and is willing to say anything to get their 4 bucks a post. Does that make us deceptive, or the blogger? We're a marketplace - we put advertisers in touch with bloggers. How is that deceptive? You don't need some super secret key and handshake to log in to PPP and see who's asking for what. Jason - where is your customer list and how much do each of them pay?

Next....

The reason I hate Payperpost so much is because it is covert marking. No one likes to be tricked or deceived–do you? Even worse is getting tricked and deceived by someone who you consider a friend who is doing it for money. [Again, Calacanis' words]

Absolutely, I don't like to be tricked. That's why I was as pissed off as anyone when you tried to buy the top digg users off. As for the getting tricked by a friend thing, well as I said, many of our bloggers do disclose, and most of them say what they truly believe. So, no trickery there. It's pretty much the same as me buying a product because Engadget said it was cool - Engadget are paid to blog, and they write their own opinion on products.

Leaving aside the Digg controversy, PayPerPost is basically revisiting the ground plowed by BzzzAgent, where people were spamming their friends. It's all ugly, and we need to stand up and shout at the top of top of our lungs that it's wrong, we won't support it, and those that play along should be shunned.

tags: jason+calacanis, pete+wright, tim+draper, payperpost, payola, marqui, bzzagents, blogging, payola

Comments

[Dan...]

Stowe: I don't think Jason is one you want to be locking arms with on this one. It's a question of whether individuals control their blogs or a private company/pseudo-governmental entity (in this case PayPerPost) tells people how to engage their audiences.

Contrary to the FUD-slinging, if you spent the time you would find a ton of posties disclosing just as you and I recommend. You could also find bloggers who have a different relationship with their readers than you do and/or a different multi-mode way of communicating with them (e.g. a MySpace blogger who tells his friends about PayPerPost and that they should expect some paid posts going forward). Although I might recommend 'my way' of doing it, I'm not so egotistical to think my way is the only 'right way'.

I'm guessing, but I bet you decide what disclosure policy to use on your blog. If not, I'd love to see the wording of any contract with a private company/governmental entity that defined how you must disclose. If you are the one that decides for your blog, then you'll understand why I support giving smaller bloggers that same freedom.

[Kevin Burton]

The term spammer and splogger don't apply here. They're just not the right term.

After giving it some thought I think Astroturfer is the better term. Specifically because astroturf is the opposite of grass roots...

Thoughts?

[Pete Wright]

Hey Stowe,

First up, I want to say that I'm a regular reader of your site (it's more than a blog now I think), and have a lot of respect for you.

I'm not going to go over and over the argument with Jason et al again here, other than to stress, again, that it is early days for us, and this whole issue is something we are looking at very hard to see what can be done to address everyone's concerns. It is absolutely not our goal to deceive anyone, or to market a service that is deceptive at it's core.

I would simply ask that you please just keep watching as we grow and evolve the service before casting too many stones.

Pete

[Kris Meister]

Wouldn't it be ironic if the "most well known bloggers" already link to and talk about people that pay them?

[Constance Reader]

I popped over to PayPerPost to check it out -- who wouldn't monetize their blog if they could do so? Internet access costs money and blogging takes time and effort. But I browsed the "opportunities" and saw nothing that interested me enough to blog about, even if the opportunities had been in sync with my blog's usual content. In fact, there seemed to be very few substantive topic opportunities out there. Perhaps that's just because PayPerPost hasn't caught on well yet, but I don't think that's the case. But I, for one, would disclose the relationship to my readers, because in the end it's my blog -- I have ownership of it and am solely responsible for its content. Any nondisclosure requirements are going to be a dealbreaker even if the opportunities available were some of the meatiest topics conceivable.

[Stowe Boyd]

Dan -- Yes, everyone has the right to decide what/how much to disclose. I maintain that those that don't disclose their PPP relationship, and pimp stuff for the payola will ineveitably be trading their reputation for a few pieces of silver. And, cumulatively, that will be bad for all of us.

Kevin - Astroturfer, yes.

Pete - Ok, I will keep watching.

Constance - I think that you won't find many reputable companies advertising through PPP, so until PPP cahnges its policies, there are unlikely to be many interesting products in there.