The title, which is a quote from the movie casablanca, is what came to mind tonight when I read the complete train wreck occuring on TechMeme over advertisements that contain a written message from the publisher. The whole thing was started by Valleywag of course.
The ads in question are a staple of FM Publishing - a standard ad unit contains a quote by the publisher saying something about something. It isn’t a direct endorsement. It certainly isn’t a product endorsement. Rather, it’s usually an answer to some lame slogan created by the advertiser. It makes the ad more personal and has a higher click through rate, or so we’ve been told. In the case of the Microsoft ad, we were quoted how we had become “people ready,” whatever that means. See our answer and some of the others here (I think it will be hard to find this text controversial, or anything other then extremely boring). We do these all the time…generally FM suggests some language and we approve or tweak it to make it less lame. The ads go up, we get paid. This has been going on for months and months - at least since the summer of 2006. It’s nothing new. It’s text in an ad box. I think people are pretty aware of what that means…which is nothing.
Let me reiterate. It’s an ad unit. You know what goes on in ad units? Advertising.
Shocking.
Valleywag says its wrong. Om Malik, an innocent babe in the woods when it comes to being on the receiving end of valleywag attacks, folded, apologized and had the ads pulled. Someone over at CNET jumped on the bandwagon, saying we were all pimping advertisers slogans. He emailed us (I was driving to Foo camp and offline), and shortly thereafter wrote “surprise, surprise–heard nothing back.” Yeah, that’s me, shrinking from controversy and afraid to answer emails. I just wrote back to the reporter, calling him an idiot for falling into this trap.
Even Dave Winer threw a few logs on the fire, while acknowledging that Valleywag is generally full of shit.
So here’s my position on all of this: Go pound sand. People understand that if there’s text in an ad box, someone is paying for it to be there.
The main thing I’m pissed off about right now is that they pulled all the ads, which mean we’re taking a revenue hit. We’re running a business here, and have payroll to make. We run ads to make that payroll. Those ads have now been pulled.
And perhaps Malik, Wilson and Kedrosky, who’ve all complimented and often linked to valleywag and have never been on the receiving end of their attacks before today, will realize how quickly that dog will turn on you. Valleyway picks its fights carefully, always attacking competitors but one at a time, while praising the rest of the crowd to keep them at bay. It’s high school bullying 101. And it works just as well in the blogging world as it did back then before we knew better. Divide and conquer. Shameful for those who sit on the sidelines and watch it all happen. And all of these guys have done exactly that.
Michael, I’m glad that you responded with a fight. This whole issue has been blown up out of nothing. No reason to feel guilty or act guilty. Feeding conspiracy theories and readers’ paranoia is a cheap trick to boost popularity. You are the only one who has balls to call things by their right names: advertising is advertising, revenue is revenue and idiot is idiot.
Nobody complains about ads on radio, TV, and in magazines and newspapers. I think that since blogs that are businesses and blogs that some guy in pajamas is writing may not seem that different on the surface, it’s easy for the pajamas brigade to confuse things. Businesses are businesses.
But I’d recommend that you shut up and don’t feed the blogosphere trolls. Just ignore them.
So are you feeling People Ready yet?
What’s the matter with people? Is it a sin to make a living? Can’t people tune out ads if they want?
Time for people to grow up methinks.
Clearly, the people are not ready.
I’m extremely disappointed you’re trying to twist the issue instead of addressing the very valid point Valleywag is making. And no, shooting the messenger does not make you more credible, even if the messenger is 99% full of crap.
Your name is on the ads. Your words are on the ads. You’re quoted as spouting “people ready” Microsoft propaganda crap like the cheapest B-actor reciting the advertisers slogan. There is no difference between “Just Do It”, “Think Different” and “People Ready”. It’s pure unadulterated advertising crap.
Yes you are “pimping advertisers slogans”. At least have the balls to admit it.
You can twist it anyway you like it, the fact remains you sold your words and your name to Microsoft, a company that offers the kind of Web 2.0 services you claim to write about as a publisher.
Let me state clearly that I do not doubt your integrity, and I trust nothing you write on Techcrunch about MS will in any way be influence by MS marketing dollars. But you have crossed a very important, clearly marked ethical line by selling your words to Microsoft. This kind of naivety only reinforces the idea that bloggers are less trustworthy then “real” journalists.
Credibility is the most precious commodity for any publisher.
I do support you. The topic “people ready” is interesting, you like it and participate in it. It’s not thing wrong with advertising the topic that you like and getting money with this. Just follow your heart, do not care about what other say. Do not believe when other say about ethnic, the web is 2.0 now so the ethnic is also 2.0, and you are defining it, not 1.0 guys.
Mike
I am with you 100% on this one
http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2007/06/why-is-nick-den.html
But I take a slightly different view of Nick. He’s making blogging more interesting at the end of the day. I ready TechCrunch and Valleywag every day and love them both, for different reasons.
Fred
Mike the issue is not the legitimacy of advertising. It’s credibility and consistency, and whether these “commercial conversations”, which seem to be mostly advertorial nonsense, are a good idea or a bad one.
You and John B have been very critical of Pay Per Post suggesting (correctly) that PPP does not create a quality conversation.
Your odd rant above has convinced me that this does not either, especially when you criticize Om Malik for - heaven forbid - being more concerned about credibility than cash.
Michael, this isn’t about Pay-Per-Post: it’s about very simple rules for journalistic integrity.
As a journalist - and you are one, whether you like it or not - you don’t appear in a commercial campaign for anyone, least of all an advertiser, even if you are not paid for it, and even if you are not endorsing their product. Can you imagine Walt Mossberg appearing in a campaign for Apple, under any circumstances? Of course not.
And as someone with a huge audience, you have to be held to the same high standards.
The question is not if it is an ad unit or not. The question is if YOU should be in an ad unit or not.
Mike, I don’t think you have figured out yet whether you are a schill or a journalist. Om has and taken the appropriate response. Let us know what you decide to be.
What a coup for Microsoft - all this publicity *and* no bill for the ad!
The credibility issue comes down to the question of are you (in the ad box) a celebrity (and therefore endorsement is already accepted in the mainstream) or a journo (and there are standards/rules about cash for comment in some countries) - or some kind of celebrity journalist, in which case you’re on a tight rope. Not for us to judge or advise on the best way to go…
The web media arena - journalistic or celebrity stlye - has a lot of growing up to do to ‘find itself’.
Enough about people-ready people already!
Couldn’t resist.
The question is not and never will be whether anyone should accept money for an ad. The only important question this has raised is whether our opinion leaders (Mike, believe me you are one of them) understand the power of their actions.
When you appear as quoted in a banner ad, people take notice. Any campaign that the advertiser is trying to get across suddenly has legitimacy.
Do I think you were wrong for accepting the FM deal? Not in the slightest, but you are considered a journalist (and quite a popular one at that) and whether you like it or not when dealing with advertisers you have to keep this in the back of your mind.
Like you have asked for in the PPP case, all that anyone could want is some manner of disclosure. By doing that, you take away some of Nick Denton’s fire.
Whether he blew this out of proportion is immaterial (he did). This conversation -had- to happen at some point. As a popular tech blogger you are an opinion leader in your field, your words have weight, CEOs cry at your feet, and a single quotation from you is worth a substantial amount of creditability.
These are the facts, whether you think they are fair or not is a question for another day.
The lesson that can be drawn from this is that when you reach a certain popularity, there are costs and benefits. The benefits are the fame, opportunities and monetary compensation one enjoys as being “advertising ready”. The cost is that one has to manage their actions, because the life blood of any writer is his readers. When you make decisions that might disappoint them, you will be called to the carpet and it will always be by someone who has every reason to hold a bit of venom — like Nick.
Despite having nothing against the ad per say, I’m going to have to say that a bit more consideration should have gone into the decision, -especially- since you have been so strongly opposed to PPP and other schemes of that stripe.
Thanks for the time.
then why were you ripping pay per post? did not they making clear it is paid review???
Not sure if that was to me or to Mike…I have nothing at all against PPP, I don’t use it but I don’t see why anyone else shouldn’t.
Mike, You are right on this one and strong enough to stand up to the criticism.
Readers who don’t know the difference between an advertisement and a blog post are hopelessly lost. The ads are clearly separated and marked as ads.
These advertising units are more conversational and relate personal experiences. I think that makes the ad more interesting, but is still just an ad.
The notion that your integrity or opinion could be swayed by a simple banner ad is absolutely ridiculous. Anyone who has read you more than once knows that.
Paul Harvey (radio) and many other media people do product endoresements all the time. No one questions their integrity. In these ads you didn’t endorse Microsoft or any product. You just related some personal experiences on how you built your business and relationship with people.
I think this tempest in a teapot has more to do with the fact that Microsoft is the ad sponsor than the content of the ad itself. In fact, your name and picture have appeared in ads for other companies many times…and never a complaint.
Right now there is an ad on your site with your picture and a quote “Easier than getting Arrington to link to your site”. It is an ad from Text-Link-Ads.com. I see nothing wrong with that ad or the Microsoft ad.
Don Dodge
(yes, I work for Microsoft, but I also take shots at Microsoft when they do someting dumb. Not the case here.)
It’s not the ads. As far as the ads are concerned “no one cares”.
What is of even mild interest is whether opinion leaders should be giving over their names to “sponsored conversations”
A thought experiment,
I want to align my brand as a “Great Escape”. If I offered FM a large sum of money to help me, and suddenly every A-Lister from here to Valhalla was dropping the term “Great Escape” on a site with my brands logo etched to it, wouldn’t that add more legitimacy to my possibly spurious claim?
I think the ads are fine, I think the conversation around the ads is extremely important though. If Nick has accomplished one thing, it was spurring us to talk about new media marketing. A call to action that is long overdue.
From what I can tell Microsoft supports more independent web content than any other company. Unlike ebay whose obsession with keywords supports typo and keyword squating and negative advertising formats on the net, Microsoft’s advertising dollars support popular independent sites regardless of their content about Microsoft.
Anyone who is reading the sites linked to from anchor spots on techmeme, and looking at the sponsor posts on techmeme itself realize that many popular sites derive their most consistent and probably largest revenue stream from Microsoft.
Microsoft runs ads on a lot of tech sites that link to customer whitepapers with quotes on the ad.
This goes on every day why is it a big deal now?
It really all boils down to the way you see yourself. Either you’re a paid celebrity, or an independent journo/opinion leader…
As the story about Oscar Wilde goes, we’re now only discussing the price…
That CNET reporter was a complete ass! As if the whole world revolves around him and his email inbox.
OMFG, you have to be kidding me! Steve S, does it really matter? Even if you’re 100% correct, what’s worse, that or Budweiser encouraging people to get drunk all the time, some % of which wind up becoming alcoholics? Is it that bad? Are you going to go post on Budweiser blogs throught this great land about what a horrible atrocity is. So caveat emptor holds up for you in the old media, but NOT the new media? Why? Why would you think that?
Just to lighten things up some chucklehead is selling 2 Tickets for the All-Star Game for $27,500! He’s selling the same 2 seats for the Home Run Derby for $11,000. The actual cost of the 2 tickets for all 3 events incluing the Rookie Game was ~$1500. But here’s the best part. It’s against the LAW to sell tickets for more than face value out in front of the ballpark. But on the Internet it’s MLB sanctioned! BTW, since MLB is the broker in the online transaction they take a 10% “convenience” fee. How convenient. So those All-Star game tickets will set you back a little over $30K.
Technology advances very rapidly. Mankind, not so much…
Does it matter?
Maybe.
Apparently it does to the metric ton of people (many of them respected leaders on the subject of technology) to take time out of their day to post about it.
Why this matters is that Budweiser has never called itself a source of news. It’s a company out to make some cash.
Bloggers, at least as far as public opinion is concerned, are sources of what passes for news. As such, unless they come out and say, “I’m just a guy who writes for kicks, stop thinking that my opinions should matter”. Then what they do with the celebrity that we have afforded them does matter.
At the end of the day, like I mentioned, this isn’t a huge deal. It is a worthy spring board for discussion though.
Insert clever closing tag line…
“Crunchnotes is an informal collection of thoughts on Web 2.0, written by Michael Arrington”
So how much do thoughts go for these days?
Still you dont get it. Accepting advertising is one thing, and clearly doesnt require disclosure. What people are doing by mouthing Microsoft’s slogan is called endorsment, you’re personally and directly amplifying a campaign or product. That requires disclosure. You cannot assume people “know what’s going on” like you imply with the gambling title.
Steve, I agree with you about Budweiser, they don’t influence the news much, just the congressional lobbies and humanity. But thank goodness, I need a beer after reading all of this.
If it were anything but a conflict between a computer publisher and the biggest computer advertiser out there for computer related publishers I would worry.
I’d understand the concern if it were the NYT running a “story” endorsing some radical cancer treatment that was really just a paid advertisement and the reader had no way to discern that.
But TechCrunch and Microsoft? If I found out Michael uses exclusively Apple Computer products, never uses any application from any version of Microsoft Office, then fry him and federated to a crisp.
Michael, c’mon, throw us a bone, tell us which Microsoft products you use on a regular basis, and if it’s one or two, you’re “People Ready” enough for me. Unless of course it’s the Zune…
Nicely phrased Rob.
I am really interested in how this meme plays out, I think it’s time to sit back and watch what the blogosphere makes of ‘conversational advertising’.
I really have no problem with any blog or website going nuts with ads and doing whatever you need to do to meet payroll. Congratulations, you hit the big time, take advantage of it.
However a lot of us read blogs and got into blogging ourselves because they were an alternative to the usual corporate crapola that passes for news. Many people who got into user created content, one of the tenets of Web 2.0 do so for the same reasons.
At the end of the day there’s a reason why I don’t have CNet, CNN, or Fox News in my feed reader. They’re not blogs, and they just churn out the same old tired corporate crap I could get from anywhere else.
Obviously, it’s up to you which direction you want to go in, but I’m deleting feeds from my reader. Pass that along to your advertisers.
Congratulations Mike for your brave decision. People should get ready to the next generation of advertising. They’ll surely get more interactive, provocative and contextual. Those who are against innovations are vulnerable to extinction according to darwinist thinking. I’m sad that Om Malik gave up so quickly but I respect his decision.
In these campaigns, each blogger is fully free to express their opinions. The purpose is to open a topic to discussion and that’s it - they can say anything they want. Advertisers just set the origin, the vectors belong to the participants, it’s their decision to take it wherever they want. Would ValleyWag fans prefer a typical static brand awareness ad campaign instead of this? No thinking, no dimensions, just striking promises…
I think this is a fair argument. If you’re talking about the ads I think you are talking about, I have noticed them for months and just sort of see them as the same thing as George Clooney talking about some kind of watch - an obviously paid endorsement. Paid endorsements aren’t new, and consumers aren’t adverse to them.
It’s hard to make money on the web, particularly as the ad industry is still not up to speed on what works and where online yet. It’s not new or odd to see advertisers try different approaches to draw traffic to ads.
Sigh… valleywag takes another credibility hit. Maybe it’s been a slow week for them.
The fervor is is as much about your stance on PPP as anything. The hypocrisy was just too easy for Nick to pass up.
Good luck Mike…you know I’m a big fan of sponsored bloggers, whether it be elites or the masses…
Your hypocrisy here is stunning.
“The main thing I’m pissed off about right now is that they pulled all the ads, which mean we’re taking a revenue hit. We’re running a business here, and have payroll to make. We run ads to make that payroll. Those ads have now been pulled.”
Guess what? Your business is only as good as your credibility, and you’ll watch them both dry up together when you allow yourself to become a shill. I think you took a serious mis-step, and telling your critics to pound sand isn’t going to help your page impressions and ad clicks in the long run.
In the comments above Emre said
“n these campaigns, each blogger is fully free to express their opinions. The purpose is to open a topic to discussion and that’s it - they can say anything they want. Advertisers just set the origin, the vectors belong to the participants, it’s their decision to take it wherever they want. Would ValleyWag fans prefer a typical static brand awareness ad campaign instead of this? No thinking, no dimensions, just striking promises…”
The issue is whether what People Ready means is worthy of conversation by bloggers–you should think twice before you decide that what People Ready means is worthy of your brain cycles
Here is what I said commenting on Om’s blog:
Neil Chase, Vice President of Federated Media Publishing trumpets the “birth of conversational marketing.” I like the idea of markets being conversations…very cluetrain and the right direction.
Here is his less than credible explanation of the MS campaign in question:
“In the case of this Microsoft campaign, the marketers asked if our writers would join a discussion around their “people ready” theme. Microsoft is an advertiser on our authors’ sites, but it’s paying them only based on the number of ad impressions delivered. There was no payment for joining the conversation and they were not required to do it. They’re not writing about this on their blogs, and of course several of them have been known to be pretty hard on Microsoft at times as reporters. They’re talking about the topic, and readers joined that conversation.”
Why would anyone join a conversation about what People Ready means to me? Is this a conversation worth having? I don’t think so unless you want to have fun critiquing Microsoft’s ad slogan…or to participate in promoting Microsoft’s ad campaign
DF
Does no one get this?
Arrington is viewed as a *journalist*. He reports news. He is not a celebrity in the sense of a Hollywood actor promoting a watch.
He is supposed to be independent. If this is new media, with “reporters” endorsing products, then fuck new media.
I want my independent media back. Arrington, you’re in the wrong here.
I don’t think Fred is - he doesn’t pretend to report the news.
You should be embarrassed by this….spouting on about “people-ready” businesses…..it’s pathetic….if you want to make ad money, run advertising, don’t shill the advertiser’s message for them…why not just sell a blog post about new microsoft products? what’s the difference by your definition, you need to make payroll, right?
you screwed up, you should admit it….and move on
Maybe Mike could do a real, worthy, critique of what “People Ready”, really means. Then the ads would be worth the freight.
I personally couldn’t care less about what my ‘journalists’ write outside of their stories. Honestly, have we ever thought bloggers were impartial? They’re going to have their biases, whether they’re paid to write something or not. I’d rather they get enough money to continue writing with their normal biases than not get the money and stop writing altogether.
I’ve refrained from commenting on TechCrunch since I joined the company as CEO two-months ago. Even though I’m highly opinionated about the products and deals covered on TechCrunch, I thought it was important to delineate clearly the business vs. editorial roles in the company.
However, since the subject of this post is advertising, and since I am responsible for revenue and profits at TechCrunch, I do have a dog in this fight, and here’s my position:
1. Internet advertising needs more innovation and experimentation, not less.
–The comingling of editorial product and advertising is not new. For example, many people objected to product placement when it was first introduced into film and television. Today, I prefer seeing Coke cups in front of Simon, Paula and Randy on American Idol to the 30-second ad that I’m trying to skip in my fast-forward world.
–Federated Media has attempted to add innovation into blog advertising by developing a sales pitch around conversational themes that mirrors the inherent strengths of blogs themselves-— pulling readers into the story.
–The extent to which Federated Media’s conversational ads deliver truly premium performance will be tested over time, but I applaud them for their efforts to make advertising more engaging and more customized to the blog sector they attempt to serve. I’d much rather read a quote from Matt Marshall or Richard MacManus than suffer through a punch-the-money ad. Contextual relevance is a major part of Google’s winning strategy in text ads. Similar innovation is sorely needed for display advertising, and I will happily embrace third-party advertisers who want to experiment with new pull-advertising techniques.
2. I don’t believe that conversational advertising is inherently conflicted just because it includes statements from participating bloggers.
–Federated Media’s conversational ad campaigns involve advertisers creating a theme or question that is relevant to their business with commentary from participating publishers. The themes are broad and futuristic in nature and do not ask publishers to comment on the company’s specific products, which I would distinguish to be a product endorsement.
–Think about the fact that advertisers are actually trying to fit in with the blogosphere by attempting to get a discussion going on a subject that’s loosely related to their specific products and services with the goal of making a more effective connection with consumers. They’re just asking bloggers to help them kick off that conversation. I think it may be easy to overlook the extent to which these advertisers are trying to embrace blogs vs. the other way around.
–The ads are presented within IAB standard ad units, and I believe they are easy to distinguish as ads vs. posts on participating blogs.
–I’m all for transparency and disclosure, but when something is clearly an ad, I believe that’s sufficient disclosure that it’s an ad.
–No ads, conversational or other, get preferred editorial treatment on our network.
3. Publishers should feel free to accept or reject advertising formats generally and campaigns individually based on their business and editorial objectives and based on feedback from their audiences.
–We’ve run a number of conversational ad campaigns from Federated Media over the last year and have not received negative comments from consumers. I plan to continue experimenting with these formats.
–It feels much distorted to me that other leading publishers are weighting a single Valleywag post more authoritatively than feedback (or lack of feedback) from their own readership.
Now I don’t consider myself a shill for Federated Media… frankly, we’ve had our share of business disagreements and I find their business model subject to risk. However, I’m an issues-based person, and on the subject of conversational advertising, I support the experiment. I think it would be much more interesting to continue the discussion about how to make conversational advertising more effective for each advertisers, publishers and consumers than to pretend that today’s display advertising model is great when it’s actually in major need of improvement for all parties involved.
“Continue the discussion,” I think I may have said something like that earlier, heh. Well said.
I have been as passionate about this issue as anyone, but I think the -entire- point is that advertising is as much for the end user as it is for publishers. People don’t like the idea of being “tricked”, especially when the credibility of respected authors is the bait used to “trick” them (note the quotes).
What is worthy of discussion in this instance is what is the best way for bloggers to interact with this “new” technique (I say “new” with reservations as it’s a old dog being given new fur). How it can be done without anyone come off as shill. I dare say it is possible.
Pretending that this is *merely* some grand experiment is decent PR and it sates the bleeding edge new media types, but at the end of the day all blogging is about the readership and today has proved the readership is not completely behind this idea (an understatement). Especially when taken in the context of other editorial decisions that have been made on this blog with regards to things like PPP.
Just because you know that come Monday this will all blow over in favor of some tirade on the iPhone doesn’t mean that dangerous ground has not be tread on today.
OK, I promised I’d sit out this thread and see what the blogosphere made of it and since it is closing in on 5AM I think I have. My thoughts? Well, I believe that blog readers attribute more credibility to their cults of personality than to mainstream media. We almost expect mainstream media to be “corporate shills out to make a buck.” Since we feel closer to bloggers due to the format that they have decided to present their opinions, we want them to be better than their mainstream equivalents.
Implicit credibility is why blogging is such a powerful medium, and it’s why FM pays a premium for words that come directly out of the blogger’s mouths. If they weren’t valuable, then there would be no “added value” from campaigns like this and no one would care enough to attempt them.
No one cares about the ads. If you removed the quotes and kept the campaign this would have died a still birth. If you had disclosed, “these *quotes* have been sponsored by Microsoft” not the ad units, the *quotes* themselves, then this would have ended. If you had though, would the ad have been as effective?
Questions without clear answers I would say, that’s why I think the only kernel of real truth that can be drawn from this is the need to have this conversation. This has been a shot over the bow compared to what would happen if one of these experiments *really* ran afoul of public sentiment. Blogs are their readers as much as their authors, without the trust relationship between them neither can operate.
My conclusion? Continue the conversation, but continue it with some degree of transparency. Don’t let Valleywag have to call you to the carpet next time, given the opportunity Nick is not going to make it easy on you.
The only real winner here has been Microsoft, and I really have to congratulate them on an excellent viral marketing campaign. We’ll all be saying “People Powered” for some time to come. ha.
Wright or wrong depend on how do you respect your readers. When you think that your readers have ability to judge themselves, or ability to understand what is an ads, what is a post, you will say more from heart and with less constrains. In that regard, I’m glad that Mike respect my ability to judge. And I’m piss-off at someone who apology, by doing so he is implicating that I cant judge myself when see this kind of ads.
To some hypocrites: when you think that those ads could not mislead you, how could you think that they may mislead me and others. You think you are smarter or more elite than others?
Sorry, Michael, but you’ve made a mistake here. I’m going to trust you the extent that I believe what you are saying is authentic.
Even when you invest in something and then talk about it, not only do you disclose it, but I still think you mean what you say, even if you are a little biased in the same way that all moms think their kids are beautiful.
If you’re saying something because you have to (in this case, to get money that you clearly really want) rather than because you want to, that’s a whole different thing.
For example, think back to when you last got put down as a reference for somebody who was good enough, but not stellar. If you’re like most people, you carefully searched your mind for some nice but true things to say, while picking your way around the bad bits.
If I know that some of what you say is is straight shooting and some is paid puffery written by marketroids, there is no way I’m going to bother to figure out which bit is which. I’ll just treat it all as if you’re shilling.
TechCrunch CEO states: “They’re just asking bloggers to help them kick off that conversation.”
Not quite.
Here’s a more accurate re-write: “They’re just paying bloggers to help them kick off that corny marketing effort masquerading as a legitimate conversation.”
There. That’s better. And by “better,” I mean honest.
I guess you could say I don’t like a Publisher adding a little quote to an ad, even if not a blatant, in your face, overt endorsement.
I know all about “credibility by association” ala displaying ad-like clickable sidebar badges to your blog. But I do it for free on all my blogs, though I’ve trimmed some blogs lately for faster page dl.
I’m not saying it’s deceptive, it’s just kind of dilutes the unbiased appearance of the journalism content, the unincentivized, objective, ie, trustworthy & reliable product reviews.
“If you’ll add a quote from Publisher to and ad, what else is happening?” is what readers may think.
Didn’t the print media solve all these puzzles ages ago?
Nobody complains about ads on radio, TV, and in magazines and newspapers.
Say what!?!?!?!
Most people complain about advertising on TV, radio, and in print. I’m not sure which alternate dimension you come from where people actually like ads and don’t complain about them.
Editorial content should never be allowed to be confused with advertising, as it dilutes credibility. The intent may not have been there, but now everything said has to be viewed under the lens of possible payments and product placements.
Allowing journalists (read bloggers) to be used in advertising directly undermines the seperation between paid advertising and unbiased editorial content. These journalists are now tainted by this link.
Pound sand? Why bother. There are plenty of other blogs to read. People won’t pound sand. They’ll just leave.
Heather and Mike,
I understand your position but what does FM Media know about experimenting with advertising formats. They are just ad reps going to marketers who don’t know what’s going on. The issue for you is that you need to either find a better partner or do the experimenting yourself. You put trust in FM and have the risk on you now. FM’s business works for banners but not on reputation and contextual environments.
Who’s Fred Wilson?
Consider this a blanket comment for EVERY future TechCrunch review:
“Mike, how much did you get for THAT review?”
Bad decision, man. Sorry, but it DOES impact your credibility - and your predictably arrogant response doesn’t help.
Best of luck to you.