When will the PPP detractors learn?

Disclaimer: This is MY blog. This is NOT controlled by PayPerPost. Anything I write here I write of my own free will and is purely, totally and completely my own opinion.

I’m just sitting here reading through my feeds and I came across a few articles that mention PayPerPost. I’m amazed, a year after our launch, that there are still some doughnuts out there that still don’t get it. Or maybe they do, but they’re just pretending to be utter muppets in the hope of more traffic.

Take Scott Karp for example. In his latest piece over at ‘Seeking Alpha’ he talks about the recent uproar surrounding Microsoft paying top tier bloggers to write about their products, Arrington included. Karp says, in his piece “So while none of the participants is guilty of deception along the lines of PayPerPost-like product endorsement”….. HUH?

Deception? All our sponsored posts have disclaimers often in both the post AND on the website. Karp was however paid to write his article, and there’s no disclosure of that.

This is even pointed out in the “Bucks County Courier Times” where a real writer and journalist (i.e one that does their research and gets their facts straight) points out “The contracts bloggers sign with PayPerPost require the disclosure.”

And then along comes Robert Scoble. Yes, THE Robert Scoble. The poster child for making a quick buck blogging (remember, he was paid to blog by Microsoft every day, he’s paid to blog by his current employer as well), said in this piece on the Microsoft debacle

Make it very clear what is advertising speech and what is not. This is why I don’t like PayPerPost and other advertising schemes that get bloggers to talk. If you write something you’re getting paid to write it should have the word “ADVERTISEMENT” in the headline. If you don’t do that, well, then prepare to get thrown under the Valleywag bus.

…and that’s from a wonderful piece entitled “Disclose if you are going to sell your soul”. Once again, for the completely deaf muppets out there “WE REQUIRE DISCLOSURE!”, and as far as I am aware we are the only sponsored blogging marketplace that does.

Sarah Macdonald over at “The National Business Review” also gets it insultingly wrong with this little gem

“In effect, bloggers are paid to write posts about companies.

They are not required to disclose this payment and often are restricted to writing only positive comments.”

You’re kidding me right? We manually review all posts to make sure that they are accurate and that they don’t fall out of line with any other posts the blogger has made. We also absolutely do NOT ‘restrict’ anyone to write only positive comments. That’s just insane. We have opportunities that advertisers expect positive write ups on, and we absolutely demand that if you say something positive, you believe it. But, more than half the system is made up of neutral opps. You can write whatever you want, positive, negative or indifferent. And once again YOU MUST DISCLOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It just makes me SOOO mad to read crap like this from people that believe they are professional journalists. Do your research people. Your ill-informed personal opinion and hidden agendas should never ever be pitched as ‘fact’.

If you want to be an ‘edgy’ journalist, take a leaf from CNN’s book. The article is not wonderfully positive when it mentions PayPerPost, but at least it presents clear fact rather than conjecture dressed up as it.

EDIT: Screenshots of two forms of in-post disclosure required by PayPerPost at work.