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Pay Per Post

noreply@blogspirit.com (dolarat) — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:55:00 +0200

Bloggers and Pay Per Post

We all want to look for ways to make money. And, it's not a surprise when entrepreneurs start to look at web logs as commercial ventures. However, one commercialization of blogging has recently created some controversy in the form of a new site called Pay Per Post by Ted Murphy. Business Week has an article on this titled, "Polluting the Blogosphere", where Pay Per Post is explained as such:

'[snip]PayPerPost.com, which will automate such hookups between advertisers and bloggers and thus codify a new frontier of product placement. Advertisers pay to post details about their "opportunity," specifying, among other things, how they want bloggers to write about, say, a new shoe, if they want photos to be included, and whether they'll pay only for positive mentions. Bloggers who abide by the rules get paid; heavily trafficked blogs may command premium rates. Those seeking to subvert PayPerPost from within can't: No pornographic or "illicit" content is accepted.'

Prior to PayPerPost.com, Ted Murphy just used to send email invitations to bloggers regarding blogging about products/advertisers via the BlogStar Network. Payment was either US$5 or $10 per post.

Of course, this has raised various ethical concerns in the blogging world. BloggersBlog has an interesting round-up of various comments from the blogosphere regarding Pay Per Post. And, Darren at Problogger.net shares some of his impressions on Pay Per Post.

What about you? How do you feel about this issue? Will you participate in Pay Per Post's program?

Stylehive’s Pay Per Post Program

noreply@blogspirit.com (dolarat) — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 21:53:21 +0200

Phil and I are very concerned about StyleHive.

I received an awkwardly-worded email from Stephanie Wong yesterday afternoon soliciting myself to participate in StyleHive at a rate of $1 per post.

Hi Julie,

I’m Stephanie, the Editor from Stylehive. How are you?

We are interested in advertising on your Almost Girl blog.

Here is the deal. We’ll pay you $1 for every original bookmark you add to the Stylehive and you will also need to put our Stylehive badge on a prominent spot on your blog. The bookmarks must be original, that means no ‘quick copies’ and no ‘copy and edit’. At the end of each month we’ll total the number of original bookmarks you’ve added and send you $ via Paypal. The number of bookmarks you add is up to you!

This struck a number of worrying chords over here, and I feel that it’s necessary to voice some of the concerns we have about this program. Through Coutorture we represent 152 bloggers, several of whom are “featured people” and active contributors to StyleHive.

I understand and respect the motivation behind this program – rewarding active contributors to the site for their work. However, the way these deals are structured undermines the basis for their contributions. By paying bloggers to post anything they have the incentive to post everything. There’s no quality check and none of the self-editing or accountability that happens on their own blogs. Ultimately, we think that this will and will pollute StyleHive with halfhearted recommendations born of convenience and not the passion for products and platform that their community relies on.

More importantly, though, there is no requirement that the payment for posting be disclosed. This is a tremendous liability for both StyleHive and its bloggers. One public row about unscrupulous fashion bloggers would do enormous damage to our community and “social” online fashion sites as a whole, and we simply can’t go about this in the same manner as the magazines – taking money for editorial (justified or not) until our credibility has completely eroded.

We have emailed a select few of our bloggers who participate in the site about this program. Few had been invited, but the reactions ranged from dismissal (“I wouldn’t do something like that”) to outright hostility (“now you can’t tell who is posting or why!”).

Phil and I have strongly suggested, both over the phone and via email that StyleHive discontinue this offer until they can find a way to incorporate a mechanism for transparency, align the incentives such that they don’t undermine the value of your site, and don’t alienate the very communities they rely on and hope to enrich.

We are also recommending that they they tell us how they have, or will, address these concerns. Until we hear back from them, though, we discourage any and all of our bloggers from participating in any way with StyleHive lest they eventually by we feel will be an

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