There are some bloggers on the other side of the fence, a few (small, minority) Parental bloggers have been shaking down PR folks for goodies, perks and pay for play.
There have been raging debates about providing disclosure; i.e. tell your visitors you are receiving compensation. Inform visitors that the review, product or trip was given to you with expectations. Some have questioned why they need to do this. They feel it doesn't matter that they get stuff free or have streams of $10 to $50 coming their way. Ethics is not their concern, getting money and free stuff across the door and keeping their visitors. The money has priority with them. Some of the Parental bloggers are chalking the whole thing up to jealousy and interfering with their business interests. Special shout out to base level Internet marketers using blogs to sell their crap. Yeah, I want the FTC to visit some of those bastards. Not the ethical ones, just the scumbags. Many bloggers, myself included, want to know if you are on the take. Tell me upfront and I can make the decision to stick around, trust or take with a grain of salt. Don't do that and I find out you have been sucking at the PR/Advertising tap and I will be disappointed. The same way I was when the Washington Post tried to sell their journalists for cash for that elite party of DC's finest, magazine advertorials labeled in 1pt type and a whole host of video pr news releases that are masked as news on local television stations. If you have a commercial blog you have responsibilities. This is one of them. Gena --- In [email protected], Markus Sandy <markus.sa...@...> wrote: > > > On Oct 6, 2009, at 3:38 AM, elbowsofdeath wrote: > > > I have not yet had time to read the full arguments of those who are > > against this, though I start from the position of viewing their > > stance with quite some skepticism. > > > I think the handwriting on the wall is pretty clear: > > Make blogging something for only insured and licensed professionals > under the guise of protecting people. > > markus > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >
