I know I’m late to the game on this one. There’s only so much blogging a girl can do when she’s frantically preparing for an upcoming blogger extravaganza.
But despite my tardiness to post about it, I’m pretty pleased that we’re moving toward a best practice of full disclosure. Honestly, I don’t see it hurting advertisers one bit. When we take bloggers on junkets, we’re pretty much fine with however they want to explain how they got to go wine tasting, etc. for free.
That said, there is a bit of a gap between giving a blogger something for free and asking him to write his honest opinion and paying him cash to write about something. Readers will have to make up their own minds about where the trustworthiness line gets drawn. Disclosing the motivation and origin of a post of this nature gives them the tools they need to make up their own minds.
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steven e. streight aka vaspers the grate 12.21.06 at 3:37 pm
Even with full disclosure, consumers don’t want to hear “honest” reviews of products from paid opinion posters.
The only advice you can really trust is from an actual user of a product, who spontaneously, without any ulterior motive, expresses an opinion about that product.
If a company is paying me to say “honest” good things about a product, company, or person, then the communication is already tainted and lacking credibility.
When we see a statement about a product on a blog post or in the reader comments, we expect it to be a non-compensated, unincentivized opinion.
PayPerPost is blog whoring and if it spreads, even with full disclosure, it will greatly decrease the overall credibility and value of the blogosphere.