
PayPerPost - I'm speechless - reitzensteinm
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/27/payperpost-now-lets-bloggers-set-their-price/
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Tichy
Somehow I can't feel bothered by this. If anything it will raise awareness
that everything on the internet should be taken with a grain of salt. And who
is writing a "self-less" blog anyway? My guess is: nobody. So let's just
discard the myth of the holy blogger.

Another thought: whose review of a product is likely to be more neutral, the
one from a blogger who bought it with his own money, or the one from the
blogger who got the product in the mail for free? My guess is the one who got
it for free might actually be more "objective", because otherwise there is
that psychological effect that people estimate things higher that they paid
for, so that they don't feel stupid. See also
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance> (Cognitive Dissonance)

~~~
byrneseyeview
"Another thought: whose review of a product is likely to be more neutral, the
one from a blogger who bought it with his own money, or the one from the
blogger who got the product in the mail for free?"

We should try this with politicians and juries -- instead of letting them come
up with policy on their own, we should bribe them so they'll look at it more
objectively.

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reitzensteinm
"The new product is a widget that bloggers can add to their blogs that
announces their willingness to sell blog posts."

What's next, you walk into a financial advisor and you see a poster "will
reccommend anything for a fee - enquire within"?

~~~
gibsonf1
This is really a bad idea - it corrupts what is so attractive about blogs -
that they represent the genuine opinions of the bloggers. If there is a
disclaimer in the blog about the sponsorship, however, no problem.

~~~
byrneseyeview
Maybe it's time to stop treating 'blogs' as a monolith, since they're as
definite a medium as, say, "Ink-like substances on tree-like materials." Some
blogs will become less reliable if they can get paid to advertise -- just as
some blogs got less reliable when people realized they could distort facts to
support their political favorites.

If you want a blogger you can trust, you're already screwed. Blogging makes
you exactly as anonymous as you want to be, so it's almost certain that what
people refuse to disclose is whatever will hurt them most.

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nickb
Ethically, the worst startup of 2006 :(

