Posted on October 13, 2006

Why Techcrunch is Wrong About Paid For Blog Posts

The influential Web 2.0 news site Techcrunch has been on a campaign as of late against the evils of bloggers being paid by companies to talk about products.

The business model they’re concerned with is exemplified by PayPerPost, a relatively new startup that brokers deals between bloggers and companies looking to promote products. As a blogger, I can sign up, get my website approved, and then browse a list of offerings. These will be things like “Review a political video” or “Talk about this new brand of shoes.” The vendor can specify whether my post has to be positive and whether I’m allowed to disclose that I wrote the post for a fee. Once the post has been given the green light by the vendor, I get paid anywhere from three to ten or more dollars.

All of this makes Michael Arrington at Techcrunch very upset:

Our position on these pay-to-shill services is clear: they are a natural result of the growth in size and influence of the blogosphere, but they undermine the credibility of the entire ecosystem and mislead readers.

Calling a blogger who gets paid to post about a particular product a shill is unfair. First, it assumes that bloggers lack the self-respect to not lie to their audience. If I like a product and write about it, what does it matter that I got a ten dollar check a month later? The moral issue is not the pay but the false enthusiasm that threatens to mislead readers. That the pay may lead some bloggers to be dishonest is a valid concern, but it is one that only plays out negatively in a specific and self-correcting situation.

To illustrate, imagine the following circumstance: I have a favorite blogger who often talks about technology products. On Monday, he posts a glowing review of Product X. Placing great value on his opinion, and being in the market for something like Product X, I order it from Amazon. When the package arrives, I tear it open, fire up the gadget, and love it.

Has anything untoward occurred? Of course not. The blogger said he liked the product, that lead me to buy it, and I liked the product, too. The value I place on his opinion has risen and I’m a satisfied customer. If I were to find out later that the blogger was paid to post that review, would it make any difference to me? It shouldn’t — because the end result of the this reader/blogger “exchange” is entirely unchanged by the source of his income.

What happens if I’m unhappy with the product? I could be dissatisfied due only to a difference in taste, but if this is a blogger who’s opinion I’ve acted on in the past, this result is unlikely. So my dissatisfaction would instead be caused by him writing a positive review of a product he didn’t actually like because he was paid to do so. If I know he was paid, my respect for him will drop and I will be unlikely to take his advice in the future. However, if I don’t know he was paid, the result will be identical. This is because the cause of my lost of respect is not the pay but, rather, the dissatisfaction with the product. And a blogger who develops a reputation for misleading reviews — especially in a realm as reputation driven as the blogosphere — will quickly lose readership.

Therefore, the fact of pay makes no difference in outcome. And if it is irrelevant to outcome, it surely can’t be worthy of the gloom and doom Techcrunch predicts.

What is even more baffling is the criticism of the soon-to-launch ReviewMe. Here, all the ambiguity is removed. The vendor cannot demand a positive review and the blogger has to disclose that the review was solicited. Techcrunch remains unconvinced.

While we applaud the fact that ReviewMe requires disclosure and prohibits advertisers from requiring a positive post, we still think the very act of paying bloggers to write about a product is a very bad idea. Frankly, we’re not happy that one of our sponsors has launched this type of service, and we’ve notified them that we will not allow promotion of ReviewMe through TechCrunch.

That’s harsh — and entirely unwarranted. As I showed above, the only morally questionable aspect of the PayPerPost model is the dishonesty it might lead to. By not requiring bloggers to be positive, ReviewMe can’t cause a misrepresentation and by dictating that the blogger inform his audience that he was paid, there is no issue of non-disclosure, either. Ultimately, ReviewMe is no different from a newspaper writer assigned to do book reviews for the arts and entertainment section. He writes reviews, he publishes his honest opinion, and he collects a paycheck for doing so. If the blogger using ReviewMe is a shill, so is Roger Ebert.

What is the solution to this non-problem Techcrunch proposes?

Given the very low likelihood of government involvement similar to the effort to eliminate payola in the radio industry, I’m not really sure what can be done to reverse the trend. In the end, individual bloggers will have to establish and maintain their own credibility.

Before addressing the issue of payola, let me say that the last sentence is exactly right. Bloggers will make moral choices for themselves. Those who are immoral will earn a few quick bucks and then watch their readership tank. Those who remain honest — which will likely be a high portion of PayPerPost users and all who use ReviewMe — won’t have to worry about credibility.

To compare a blog post about a product to payola, however, is ludicrous. This is particularly true when dealing with a review service like ReviewMe. Payola is when a radio station is paid by a label to air a single. There is no evaluation taking place. Payola is product placement while a review is distinctly informative. There just isn’t any genuine parallel.

In conclusion, should we, as members of the blogosphere, be upset about pay for post programs? I maintain that we shouldn’t, at least not to the hyperbolic level displayed by Michael Arrington. If nothing else, these businesses put more money in the pockets of hard working bloggers, allowing them the luxury to continue producing the content we all crave.