Michael Arrington and a Postie taking money Michael Arrington, one of the bloggers whom Microsoft paid to use its "people-ready" catchphrase, is less friendly to conversational marketers when other sites are getting the money. From the archives of Arrington's Techcrunch:

At PayPerPost, bloggers are offered cash to write about products. Disclosure is optional, and often the bloggers are required to only express positive comments... This "virus" seems here to stay... Blurring the lines in this way — facilitating the pollution of the blogosphere while creating an illusion of doing something good for the public, is a good business move for PayPerPost. But it is a terrible development for the blogsphere and public trust. I hope that very few bloggers are suckered into going along with this. [From PayPerPost is officially absurd, Techcrunch, October 2006]

In the case of the Microsoft ad, we were quoted how we had become "people ready," whatever that means. 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. [From I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! — on Arrington's personal site, Crunchnotes, June 2007]

9:07 AM on Sat Jun 23 2007
By Nick Denton
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4 comments

Comments

jmdecombe at 11:02 AM on 06/23/07
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Thanks for providing a valuable service to the community, that is, helping bloggers to grow up and become trustworthy reporters that do not endorse things "whatever they mean" someday.
OpenTransport at 12:09 PM on 06/23/07
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This is like Ann Coulter appearing in a Halliburton ad, explaining what makes her 'business' jihad-ready. Awesome.

The biggest travesty is that none of the bloggers, supposedly out there to filter corporate nonsense for their readers, actually explained (or questioned) what "people-ready" means! It's one of the least compelling MSFT ad campaigns I've seen in years, and if Om, Arrington and other semi-respected tech pundits can't figure it out and explain it in terms that make sense, Ballmer and co. should pull the campaign and go back to welcoming me to the Social.
caletucker at 12:14 PM on 06/23/07
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So basically what Arrington is saying is if the endorsement is in a bordered box, it's ok. But if it's in a blog entry with no box to distinguish the endorsement, ala PPP, it's not ok. Thank God for CSS!
senori at 12:16 AM on 06/24/07
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I should think the difference between the two is the context. If the blogger is writing on his blog, without any suggestion that the content is an advertisement or that he is being paid for it, then it is obviously inappropriate as he is presenting his paid opinions as an unpaid opinion. However, giving a comparable opinion in an advertisement, even if it would be the same text, is not equivalent; it is an advertisement, and it is therefore clear that he is writing it as such. The ethical difference, I think, should be clear.