Hey Ringo, Can Money Buy Me Love?

Far be it from me to suggest that my opinion should matter to you about pay per post blogging. I don't do it, I won't do it, I've never done it, though my reasons may be a lot less Joan of Arc than you might think.

I have to admit the first time I heard about pay per post I was a little queasy. Well, a lot queasy. Being someone with excessive interest in Washington and politics, I am all to familiar with the consequences of prostituted media.

But I am also aware of my own willingness to jump to conclusions -- contempt before investigation. So I put on my trenchcoat and trust trilby, and grabbed my magnifying glass for this post.

But let me get back to my lack of angelic purity for a moment -- I don't and won't do PPP because I have no desire or inclination to make money on this blog. It's a place for me to give my opinion, and while accepting PPP would not preclude me from doing so, for me it's important for me to write about things I find and am thinking about on my own.

For my investigation I went to Izea.com and their site SocialSpark.com, which is billed as a combination pay per post and social media venue for bloggers. Here one can communicate with other bloggers as well as view and apply for opps advertised by marketers. Here's an example of one of these opps:



So, you may not know that IZEA has a code of ethics, the cornerstone of which is disclosure of the fact that a blogger accepts PPP sponsorships. To meet this requirement, a blogger must do one of three things (sponsoring companies can insist on one.)

1. Including an oval "sponsored post" graphic.



Here's what that looks like in a blog, this example from the HillBilly-Willy blog,



As you can see, Willy is a disclosin' saint. There is no subterfuge here. Bravo!

2. Including text in the post that indicates that it is sponsored.

3. Including text somewhere on the blog that says that the blogger accepts PPP sponsorship. My personal opinion is that the first two are sound, the third is pretty squishy.

But beyond that particular criticism, this kind of disclosure is similar to the "advertorial" notice a magazine provides. It is BETTER than the lack of disclosure on a magazine's "best bets" or similar pages that feature the products of companies who "just happen" to have purchased full page ads in the issues. Never noticed this? Grab a women's magazine and check it out.

The Izea site and advertisers make a big deal about the fact that they insist on full disclosure and don't want to pay for insincere shilling. That's something to consider. I am certain that advertisers want to avoid the appearance of supporting shills. We have all seen how quickly fake posts or the like are "outed" online.

Realistically, a small or midsize blogger -- which is clearly the sweetspot of this model, as it is tough to imagine a Tech Crunch or a Perez Hilton doing this -- would lose their audience rather quickly if they posted a lot of lies. You might not agree with this, but I have enormous faith that the online audience is far more adept than the average TV viewer at discerning truth from crap.

So what are the responsibilities of bloggers? I believe that they are high (I am going to get bleeding heart political here, WARNING!!!) in many categories. I think of blogs as the only media today that have the potential for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing of the truth. For my American readers, let's remember that we live in a country where a tiny number of companies own virtually all major media outlets. Frighten yourself by visiting this web page: Stop Big Media.

So, I view bloggers as the critical conduit of unvarnished info to the public, or at least the 76% or so of Americans that can afford Internet access. If you accept that belief that bloggers are actually essential to modern democracy, the idea of sponsored posts may appear to run counter to this mission.

But not all bloggers are firewalls of a free society. For example, I would not put in this category a certain aging huckster blogger that runs lip synch videos in lieu of content posts on Fridays because his site traffic used to plunge on that day. I ain't changing the World here at OLDMTA.

Apologies, because I have gotten pretty far from a review of PPP. But all this is important to me as an explanation for why so many have such passionately negative feelings about PPP. Many of us expect virtuousness from bloggers because we have elevated the media form to paramount social importance. Forgetting that for every HuffPost there are like 7 million blogs about:

* The family dog
* Obama girl
* Nestbuilding habits of nuthatches
* Toddlers

Which is not FOR A MOMENT diminishing the quality or editorial independence of these blogs. Actually, I thought all these blogs were excellent. I am just pointing out that they're not all covering major political issues like TPM or Matt Drudge.

In nonpolitical categories, I have less concern about PPP. I don't really care if a Hollywood blogger posts about a celeb photo contest, so long as it is disclosed.

And IZEA is not basing its model on political anything. A look at the current offers shows a preponderance of entertainment programs, a bunch of contests, and web site launches. Oh, and I checked. No offer of $7.50 to advocate for annihilating Iran.

One also needs to consider that there are many people attempting to earn a living blogging, or at least a significant supplement to their incomes. If your Talking Points Memo, or Drudge, or Pink is the New Blog, or SheFinds, you have garnered the sort of massive audience that makes that possible through banners and AdSense. For the niche blogger, or the blogger that got a later start, one may feel the need to find supplements to Google listings to make an economic "go" of it.

A good blogger is going to write about what they care about, whether they're paid to do so or not.

OK, so I have spent about 2 million electrons on this post, do I have a cogent conclusion?

I think IZEA and PPP are far from the evil some make them out to be. They may not be my cup of tea for OLDMTA, but in a free society people should be "free" to do what they want and make money how they choose to. And my magical dream about a world where penniless but virtuous bloggers toil away in studio apartments in holey sweaters content to eat admiration instead of having money for food -- well, that's probably unrealistic as an expectation.

And I also feel the need to point out that it IS possible to LIKE something, and accept $5.50 for talking about them on your blog. I sometimes write about our clients and they pay us a lot more than $5.50 or whatever. But I hope my readers know that when I write about them it's because they make me excited to be working on their concepts.

But I'd still prefer that people didn't need PPP to make a living blogging.

So, no cogent conclusion at all. Perhaps I should have posted four lip synchs instead of this... ;-)

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.