The Neverending Story: Marc Heresy’s I, II, III, IV, and V
[reposted from Get Real: I condensed the five posts together]
Marc’s Heresy October 21 2004
Marc Canter seems to be suggesting a new business scheme (or model, if you’d like) based around pay-for-press:
[from Marc’s Voice: Transparency and sponsorship in the blogosphere]
One thing we DON’T want to do is hide the fact or pretend like it’s anything other than income for bloggers. The particular product we’re going to ‘flog’ is not something a blogger would use for blogging or even use at all. But it’s coolio and has something to offer the world that’s unqiue. And that’s worth talking about.
The fact that we found them and give them money - just means that THIS particular meme gets spread (as opposed to any other one) and I believe that’s called marketing.
There’s lots of money available for marketing, some of it going to advertising. But wouldn’t it be coolio if some of it went directly into blogger’s pockets? I like the feel of it it my pocket!
We designed this program to tap into the pure state of what (as I see it) a blogger is - somebody who, off on their own, has something to say.
If through paying this blogger to blog about a particular product, the company can have it’s agenda achieved - then why not?
Well, there are a lot of reasons why not. This takes the blogger out of being a commentator or analyst, and makes them a spokesperson or endorser.
Of course, if you really love blue Jello, there is nothing wrong with saying so; and there is nothing wrong with the makers of Jello buying an ad on your site since you write a lot about food. But there is something wrong with writing about Jello (at least in an completely false way) if in fact you hate it, but the marketers want the readers of your blog to get a different message.
There is a thin line between propaganda and marketing-facing editorializing, and we shouldn’t cross it or we will lose authenticity and trust.
Marc’s Heresy II October 25 2004
Marc continues the dialog regarding his modest proposal to make “100s of millions for bloggers” by creating a “pay for ink” business.
At first he is dismissive of the arguments that I made (as well as others) regarding “crossing the line” between observing what is happening in some market and, alternatively, explicitly blogging on products because you are paid to do so.
As I understand Marc’s contention, he (or some company he is thinking about setting up) will stand in between the individual blogger and the sponsors, and he will distribute the funds based on product mention, but with no specific effort to create positive spin. So the blogger will just collect his micro payments for micro mentions, and there is no foul. And in this way, the blogger stays pure.
[from Marc’s Voice: REbutt, enlighten and grimace]
The purity of bloggers is what we want. AND the honesty. The moment our bloggers start shilling us - is the moment the whole thing is ruined.
WHAT IF this works - that’s what the MOST terrifying. WHAT IF folks could REALLY say what they want and STILL get paid?
- we will not, I repeat, we will NOT be censoring, limiting or telling our bloggers what to blog. No one believes me on this point. They just can’t seem to fathom the notion of someone paying to be lambasted - but gee, maybe it’s true.
- why is everyone so upset? Perhaps because I’m challenging this hi-falooted notion of blogging. Perhaps becuase I don’t buy that blogging and bloggers are the saviors of modern day democracy, journalism and media? Perhaps blogging is just a viral web based phenomena - that’s found a home in lonely, information thristy customers who dig the honesty and difference from what they’re used to? Why the brain pondering introspective nuances and conversations? What’s wrong with having fun, making a buck and getting on with it?
As I sat across the table from David Weinberger he said that this idea would pollute the purity of blogging - that’s all I needed to hear.
Right on!
Let’s pollute the hell out of it.
I am not so concerned about the purity of blogging — I am eager to sell advertising at Corante blogs — but I don’t like the idea of selling space in sentences, just over in the margins.
I agree with Marc’s contention that the current model of blog advertsing means that only those with real influence can make money — influence either from large readership or very select readership. But I think that is how the world works: its not just a convention around blogs.
We can experiment with all sorts of interesting sponsorships — I will be announcing something along those lines later this week, in fact — where sponsors dollars do something more interesting than buy a rectangle of real estate on a blog page. But there still needs to be a hands-off policy regarding the words coming out of our mouths. And while make seems to be saying “You are free to say whatever you want,” I think I hear him saying, “but if you want this check, please talk about ‘product X’.”
We have sponsored blog entries here at Corante (although they are not running in this new template, at the moment) so maybe that’s all that’s needed. But in such a case we explicitly mark the sponsored entries as such. We even were making them a different color, so they would stand out (again, currently disabled — soon to be back).
So the the skinny on this is: I don’t think that there will be enough in it for advertisers to pay, the results will be meager, and potential for loss of credibility for bloggers will be too high.
Marc’s Heresy III October 27 2004
Marc Canter’s plan to create a little controversy around his “pay for ink” proposal has created a firestorm of contention, and my last post on the subject received pings from Marc, and J Luster, as well as a bunch of good comments by Zbigniew Lukasiak, TDavid, rick gregory, and Richard MacManus (Suw’s wisecrack doesn’t count).
The lines seem to be pretty clearly drawn, On one side, those that contend that “pay-for-ink” is bad, because it will pollute the trust and athenticity that bloggers live by. This camp includes Jason Calcanis, David Weinberger, J Luster, and me. On the other, Marc is pretty much on his own.
However, some interesting middle ground:
- Zbigniew points out that marketing departments do pay for survey information even when you check “this product blows” — so in some aggregated way any ink might be considered good. But do companies actually want to pay someone to say that their product sucks?
- TDavid lists a number of services and sites that do blend content and product: “Epinions, WayPath, Lockergnome … all sites that utiltize affiliate text links in and around content (and effectively, BTW). Calcanis’s crusade is well-intentioned but misguided and comes off looking absurd considering the abundance of websites (and blogs too) that are already inserting advertising inside blog entries effectively for advertisers.” But I think the difference here is that the ads are insinuated into the content automagically, and the authors are not being paid to make the comments. It happens the other way around: they make comments on something — a Sony device — and the content is then hyperlinked to some click through mechanism, and any micropayments are delivered to Epinions. This is not a blogger being paid to blog about the device
This is a debate that will never be over, because we all want to move beyond just selling real estate over there in the margin. But jumping all the way over to being a shill is too far to go, Marc.
Marc’s Heresy IV 27 October 2004
It looks like Marc has decided to take our dialog about “pay-for-ink” very personally (see Marc’s Voice: On my own - HAH!), while I was really trying to keep to the ethical issue.
I don’t think of myself as a namby-pamby academic type, sniffing the flowers and about to get trampled by the Wal-Marts (as Eric Rice suggests). Corante is actively working to promote more-or-less conventional advertising on our Industry Insider blogs, and we are also at work on several very innovative projects with sponsors (soon to be announced) where we are blending blogging and sponsorship in cool ways.
But I can’t support “pay-for-ink” because I think it swings too far.
But I am not really trying to convince Marc, so much as stating what I think is the correct path to walk. Marc is (obviously) free to pursue whatever course he chooses to. And if I am reacting just like Marc knew I would, fine. I am not trying to conceal what I think, or create some convoluted argument. It doesn’t bother me that my reaction is predicable; so I don’t feel played.
In the final analysis, the market is Darwinian. If “pay-for-ink” works, people will gobble it up. But I doubt it.
Marc’s Heresy V November 3 2004
Jason Calcanis posted a piece yesterday which is the outgrowth of an ongoing, email back channel discussion arising from Mark Canter’s Heresy (see Marc’s Heresy, II, III, and IV). I hate to say it, but I almost agree with Jason:
No one is saying running advertising makes you a whore. Boingboing added traditional advertising units that are clearly labeled. I think that is great and I’m psyched that the hard-working team over there is covering their costs and getting paid for putting together a very unique product.
What we’re saying is that if you mix advertising into your editorial, and have the writers getting paid to promote products, you are a whore.
There is a line, and we shouldn’t cross it. “Whore” may be a bit strong, but I agree with Jason’s perspective.
