But wait!
Weinberger almost has it right. He’s missing one key thing - which I’ll clarify below.
I think Marc Canter’s idea is, overall, a bad one because, even though his scheme provides transparency (yay!), as I understand it, bloggers who said bad things about a client would not get their contracts renewed (boo!); “Say nice things or we’ll stop paying you” makes you less trustworthy. I’m in favor of bloggers making money from their blogs, but not if I now have to worry that their voice may have been bought. (See Stowe and Jason for more.)
And I want to set the record (= the index) straight on a personal matter. Marc quotes me from a fun lunch we had a couple of weeks ago in SF. He told me about his plan. I told him why I thought it would result in coercing bloggers into saying good things about his clients. I not only told him that I of course want bloggers to be able to make money blogging, I suggested variations on his plan that I thought would put money in blogger’s pockets without making us into shills. (Primarily, I suggested paying bloggers to blog about a product on the product’s site, with full transparency, for a limited time with a non-renewable contract. Is it a good idea? I dunno, but bloggers would make money and I think wouldn’t feel coerced into being positive.)
The lunch was explicitly off-blog. Instead, Marc quotes me out of context as saying I’m interested in the “purity of blogging,” as if I am somehow against making money. Since I gave Marc free consulting about ways to pay bloggers, I don’t like being used as the poster boy for puritanism.
By the way, I paid for Marc’s lunch and Marc gave me a ride to the airport in his funky cab-car. So, I think we’re even on that score.
First of all - I feel really bad I quoted Dave. I completely forgot about our moratorium on our conversation - but within the din of over 20 interviews and dicsussions on these ideas (over the past two weeks) - I completely forgot our agreement.
So I totally apologize for that. I immediately removed that quote as soon as Dave reminded me of that.
Sorry again!
The way I intepreted Dave’s statement on purity is not that making money is bad, but that blogging is some sort of pure thingie.
That’s what I disagree with.
I didn’t interpret Dave’s statement of purity as anything more than just that.
But what’s disturbing is that Dave seems to still think that if a blogger would blog something bad - that we’d “fire them”.
WRONG!
NO!
I will state it again.
We’ll sign contracts for three month agreements tha guarentee payment no matter what happens. Once we enter the agreement with the blogger - they get paid for three months as long as they stick to their side of the deal.
We will pay bloggers to blog ABOUT the product. That blogger can write ANYTHING THEY WANNA say about the product. We are not paying the blogger to write about anything else.
We are paying them to intelligently consider the product, it’s solutions and success stories and to blog about what they feel about teh rpoduct, it’s solutions and it’s unqiue value added proposition.
If the blogger wants to put a disclaimer, blox around the post, different colored background, add in language that says that this is paid for, whatever they can - but we won’t require that. But we won’t be pissed either.
BTW this product is not FOR bloggers or FOR blogging. It’s just that we feel that bloggers are a great way to get our message out there. As opposed to banner ads or sponsorships.
That’s all.
We feel that the blogosphere is a great place to get a message out. And we’ll pay for it. We’re not concerned with what people will say about the product. We’re proud of the product and we’re confidant that if someone has something negative to say - that we can address those problems - forthwith. In other words - we stand by the product.
We’ll probably require something like one mention a week (a mention defined as stating the product’s name and linking to the product.) That’s it.
No firing people for bitching, no firing people for not following instructions - there are no instructions.
I’m not sure how much clearer I can be.
And I owe David Weinberger one lunch.
Marc, first, thanks for fixing the quote problem. I appreciate it.
I continue to believe 100% that you will not stop people from saying what they want. I’ve never questioned that. In the post you quote, I say I’m worried about bloggers wondering if they’ll get their contracts RENEWED. So, let’s say I sign up for 3 months and I lambast your client. If I know you can opt to renew my contract for another 3 months, I may find myself softening what I say. I’d be more comfortable with your proposal if there were no possibility of renewal. But, even then, I may want to please you (= the broker) so you’ll throw some business to me with your next client.
I also don’t understand why you don’t insist that bloggers mark their paid content as paid content. What possible reason could a blogger have for not doing so except to please the client? If you believe in transparency (and I know you do), you should insist on it. In fact, I still think it’d be better to box beholden posts in a separate part of the page. That way, the blogger doesn’t break trust with her readers, and your client doesn’t run the risk of a getting a black eye when the blogger is exposed.
Overall, I look at this idea and, even though it’d put money in bloggers’ pockets, it seems to me to make the blogosphere a worse place, not a better one. And, unfortunately, it undermines what I take to be the core value of blogging: The trust that people are speaking from their hearts.
So, overall, I hope you don’t do it.
Marc, first, thanks for fixing the quote problem. I appreciate it.
I continue to believe 100% that you will not stop people from saying what they want. I’ve never questioned that. In the post you quote, I say I’m worried about bloggers wondering if they’ll get their contracts RENEWED. So, let’s say I sign up for 3 months and I lambast your client. If I know you can opt to renew my contract for another 3 months, I may find myself softening what I say. I’d be more comfortable with your proposal if there were no possibility of renewal. But, even then, I may want to please you (= the broker) so you’ll throw some business to me with your next client.
I also don’t understand why you don’t insist that bloggers mark their paid content as paid content. What possible reason could a blogger have for not doing so except to please the client? If you believe in transparency (and I know you do), you should insist on it. In fact, I still think it’d be better to box beholden posts in a separate part of the page. That way, the blogger doesn’t break trust with her readers, and your client doesn’t run the risk of a getting a black eye when the blogger is exposed.
Overall, I look at this idea and, even though it’d put money in bloggers’ pockets, it seems to me to make the blogosphere a worse place, not a better one. And, unfortunately, it undermines what I take to be the core value of blogging: The trust that people are speaking from their hearts.
So, overall, I hope you don’t do it.
Marc, first, thanks for fixing the quote problem. I appreciate it.
I continue to believe 100% that you will not stop people from saying what they want. I’ve never questioned that. In the post you quote, I say I’m worried about bloggers wondering if they’ll get their contracts RENEWED. So, let’s say I sign up for 3 months and I lambast your client. If I know you can opt to renew my contract for another 3 months, I may find myself softening what I say. I’d be more comfortable with your proposal if there were no possibility of renewal. But, even then, I may want to please you (= the broker) so you’ll throw some business to me with your next client.
I also don’t understand why you don’t insist that bloggers mark their paid content as paid content. What possible reason could a blogger have for not doing so except to please the client? If you believe in transparency (and I know you do), you should insist on it. In fact, I still think it’d be better to box beholden posts in a separate part of the page. That way, the blogger doesn’t break trust with her readers, and your client doesn’t run the risk of a getting a black eye when the blogger is exposed.
Overall, I look at this idea and, even though it’d put money in bloggers’ pockets, it seems to me to make the blogosphere a worse place, not a better one. And, unfortunately, it undermines what I take to be the core value of blogging: The trust that people are speaking from their hearts.
So, overall, I hope you don’t do it.
thank you for your work
thank you for your work
thank you for your work