David - true it is sometimes murky and I myself am on the lookout as I am being paid at them moment by SOcial Media CLub (a nonprofit educational organization) to produce a series of conversations across the USA and Sydney about the current state of video. The campaign has a sponsor but the work is not about the product; it is about video. Nonetheless, it is a form of market research for the sponsor, RealPlayer SP. I append my tweets with [client] and now I actually feel bad for not telling this list about the events - your voices would be great ones to add to the conversation. There are 7 more events still to happen tho so I will start a new thread on that. With disclosures. :-) Steve - policies are helpful. Edelman, the PR firm that got blasted for sending two staffers across the USA in an RV to stay overnite for free in Walmart parking lots - as it was positioned as user generated content when i fact it was an early experimental social media campaign paid for by Walmart. They now require their bloggers to disclose the relationship between themselves and sponsoring brands.
R On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 9:26 AM, elbowsofdeath <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Its their own fault if it doesnt even dawn on them, let this be a long > overdue wakeup call. > > The FTC look at all this stuff on a case-by-case basis anyway, they arent > going to attempt to police this stuff down to the last blog or twitter, > indeed a large point of updating the guidelines is to get most people to > self-police because they wont have the excuse that they never even > considered this stuff or that the guidelines didnt mention them. And for > those who persistently mislead or just ignore the issue, well occasionally > the book will get thrown at them, further raising awareness for everyone > else. > > Im sure that a few genuinely murky areas may emerge where people may be > justified in not knowing how to handle things, or where there seems to bean > injustice, but overall after reading the guidelines I think quite a lot of > sensible thinking has gone into them and for the majority of cases its quite > straightforward. > > If I have understood the guidelines properly, one area that may spell > trouble for certain corners of the blogosphere is that companies can be held > to account if bloggers that they pay or give freebies to, make misleading > claims about the products. Companies are advised to shield themselves from > this stuff by taking some steps to limit this where possible, such as > monitoring the bloggers they seduce, and not giving any more freebies to > bloggers who make spurious claims about their products. > > The celebrity stuff brought a grin to my face as celebs can no longer rely > on a 'I was just reading a script/sticking to my contract' defense if they > are bullshitting about a product in certain specific ways. > > I consider all of this as fairly inevitable considering the changed nature > of the distribution of these messages. Endorsers messages are no longer > published only by the company who make the products, do the endorsers > themselves are deemed responsible and will sometimes be held to account. > > Cheers > > Steve Elbows > > > --- In [email protected] <videoblogging%40yahoogroups.com>, > David King <davidleek...@...> wrote: > > I know a lot of bloggers that mix business and pleasure, > > professional interests and family, and well - they're still in that murky > > middle area where policies like the FTC is going after ... wouldn't even > > dawn on them. > > > > That, plus the fact that there are like a gazillion blogs out there, > makes > > this a hard thing to enforce, I think :-) > > > > > -- Roxanne Darling "o ke kai" means "of the sea" in hawaiian Join us at the reef! Mermaid videos, geeks talking, and lots more http://reef.beachwalks.tv 808-384-5554 Video --> http://www.beachwalks.tv Company -- > http://www.barefeetstudios.com Twitter--> http://www.twitter.com/roxannedarling [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
