Comments on: People that don’t blog are idiots. . .

By: Ileane

Ileane — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:02:31 +0000

Point well taken. And I forgot to mention that I did enjoy reading the post, and I gave it a Sphinn.

Thanks.

By: Jack Leblond

Jack Leblond — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:58:42 +0000

But does imposing rules on otherwise honest companies/bloggers help? Those that do things right will continue to do so, but with the added disclaimers that make consumers suspicious when there is no reason to be. Those that don’t do things right will just find a new trick to skirt around the rules.

By: Ileane

Ileane — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:57:53 +0000

I’m not so sure about all of this Jack and here’s why. I was in advertising many years ago and learned so much about the tricks advertisers use to “trick you” into trying their products, that I got to a point where I began to ignore ads (as much a humanly possible). So now that I am blogging and visiting other blogs, and I see all of these ads flashing across the top and alongside of articles I am amazed at how much money some bloggers are making. You mean to tell me that people actually click on those ads?? Yup, guess they do because tons of very reputable bloggers with excellent content are getting paid with AdSense and AdWords etc. The latest advertising trick I saw was on YouTube. I pulled up a video of someone that I know I wanted to subscribe to, as soon as I was about to hit the subscribe button, an ad popped up and the subscribe button moved down and if I hadn’t been paying close attention I could have easily clicked on the ad. My point here is that there should be some notice to consumers so that they will know – even if something doesn’t look like an ad, doesn’t smell like an ad, it’s an ad. Thanks for letting me speak.

By: Jack Leblond

Jack Leblond — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:56:22 +0000

If we were to apply the radio market model to blogs, we could have banner ads, or other content – but no reviews/recommendations. Which might also mean no links to other sites. Thankfully we don’t have such strict rules – yet.

By: Monica Wright

Monica Wright — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:47:33 +0000

Excellent post Jack. Of course you can see the FCC having a heyday. It’s called payola in radio, and as you know it’s an absolute no-no. I’m pretty close to the radio industry, and even if you MENTION where you ate over the weekend you cannot accept any kind of incentive in return. And if you do, it’s turned over, period. Of course blogging is a lot different than radio, but it’s still content that is requested to be broadcast. It’s still all corporate-run BS that as a result of one, possibly iffy, payola blogger all others need to suffer.

By: Jack Leblond

Jack Leblond — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:28:55 +0000

If the review is detailed, I agree that it will have both good and bad points. It’s pretty rare to find a product or service that is useless, or one that is perfect. If you are honest in your review, what can be gained by disclosing whether or not you were paid for the review? If the FTC is correct, your readers will actually be skeptical of you. If you are dishonest, will the disclosure make any difference? I don’t think it will.

By: @joannalord

@joannalord — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:17:19 +0000

Great post Jack, I am actually happy to see so many people talking themselves in circles re:all the comments. As a consumer of so many blogs on a daily basis, I have grown frustrated by the number of “sponsored” posts, and perhaps more importantly–grown frustrated knowing that less evolved readers are most likely persuaded by these “warm fuzzy” articles without knowing their sponsored nature.
With that said, as a blogger, I can say that I always note when I am giving an opinion on a product that I have been given for free, or compensated to write on. I think its part of the post experience by saying “listen, I was prompted to review (______) lets go through the good and bad of it together.” Much like Christina said, I always try to get at least one good thing in there and some negatives to provide the most fair assessment of anything, even if compensated for my words.
Lastly, I think Dana hits it dead on when she suggests this ruling really reflects the governments insecurities regarding our influence as bloggers, and due to that I think we all better get used to these dialogs, because this surely wont be the last rule they change in hopes of tightening the reigns…

By: Jack Leblond

Jack Leblond — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:30:12 +0000

Taxes may well be the reasoning behind this – if all the bloggers have “I was paid for this” on the applicable posts the IRS could find them with a simple google search. Maybe something “who has 2 nickels in their pocket?”

By: Dana Lookadoo

Dana Lookadoo — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 04:55:43 +0000

Jack, This is outrageous!

The govt is working its way into our online lives at an accelerated rate. I won’t go into a political rant and try to stay away from such. Unfortunately, our taxes pay for the cost of writing and enforcing these mandates. Does using “one’s head for more than just a hat rack” have to be legislated??

Maybe the govt feels its losing control due to the influence of bloggers, and they want to ensure they get their % of taxes.

Thanks for the enlightenment! Be careful, if we complain too much, we’ll be turned in!

By: Jay Ehret

Jay Ehret — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:12:38 +0000

I guess it’s a good thing the government doesn’t have anything better to do than police the bloggers.

This also raises the question about Twitter, which is micro-blogging. I see tweets all the time that I know have sponsorship behind them. Should tweets now carry a disclaimer too?