Friday, June 30, 2006
Yeah, this is wrong
I have been using Flock lately to write blog posts, and for some reason I do find it does encourage me to blog more often, because it feels more quick.
Saw this article by Jon Fine in BusinessWeek about bloggers who receive pay-per-post. And that the company facilitating these transactions isn't particularly concerned about whether bloggers disclose said arrangement or not. Similar complaints have been lodged against BzzAgent. Namely that they didn't used to encourage their Agents to disclose that's what they were. And even now that they supposedly encourage such disclosure, they certainly can't control it.
Yeah, I think this kind of shilling is wrong, no matter the medium.
Not criminal. Not actionable. But not particularly ethical. And oh, by the way, it happens in more traditional meda channels too, so let's not pretend it's only we evil bloggers doing it. But then we, as bloggers, have to step off our high horse a bit about traditional media if we get called out on the very same behaviors, don't we?
Point is: each source still has to establish its own credibility. Do you trust all newspapers...or do you trust the New York Times or the Washington Times or the World Weekly News? Do you trust all TV commentary shows...or do trust CNN or NPR or Fox News? See my point?
It's kinda that simple, isn't it?
technorati tags:businessweek, credibility, transparency, jonfine
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