On the other hand, perhaps I'm not in the target audience. And that may explain why - despite awful campaigns - Microsoft reigns supreme. As long as they can convince business executives to stick with Microsoft, they will survive.

jiihaa

shmooth

foremski

It is not a conversation when you and your minions write some text and ask others to say it. Further, it sounds like there *is*, contrary to your statement, additional payment: these ads apparently get higher click-throughs.

This is only "conversational" in the sense that a chat with Tony Snow about Bush's record is a conversation: only technically. What you're doing is creating the false appearance of conversation to make money.

If you want an actual conversation, then help your advertisers to start blogs. With real people saying true, interesting things in authentic voices. Then we'll talk with them.

The good news, though, is that you're clearly hearing that you've crossed a line. Hopefully you'll do something about it.

Filament

And, as the previous commenter calls out, it's a stupid campaign to begin with. I'm so sick of seeing those meaningless, ill-inspired ads everywhere that I could puke. And now we're subjected to this?

GraemeThickins

cousinlarry

midas

Nick Denton

btw, is it me or does "prodport" sound like a certain blogger with the initials MA?

kraptek

[www.crunchnotes.com]

"The ads go up, we get paid"

It's not in the same league as PPP, but it's definitely a commercial endorsement. "People Ready" is not a common expression, it's a Microsoft marketing slogan, and the writers are being payed to use it. The provocative language aside, Valleywag is right on the money on this one.

RickMB

eze

As for the Microsoft/FM campaign, I can't say I think it's "slick". I don't know what Microsoft wants me to buy other than today's catch phrase. The site didn't do anything for me. At least if it were PayPerPost, I would know the product or service being pitched.

I suspect as the earlier reader states, some of these authors did complain of PayPerPost. If I'm not mistaken, there have been two phases per se. When PPP first came out, readers did not know authors were getting paid. I think this is where most of the controversy started and the "A list" people objected. I think now, they require authors to state it is a paid review. And no, I've not gone to cross reference their opinions of PPP as I really don't think its as big an issue as you state.

While I think it's good you state your passions, I suspect your "dispassions" (is that a word?) include some of the people you've mentioned in this story.

I did think it was ironic that the picture that posted under the story was a Gawker Artist that showed a person holding a sign stating "Stop Crying". I also suspect Battelle's team is hoping your article takes off to draw more attention to the campaign. I say let's move on.

prodport

Trendis

Even though I've avoided PPP at my own blogs, I've often found myself arguing at both TechCrunch and Searchblog that their case against PPP is *mildly* hypocritical because they themselves are bloggers that take in advertising revenues.

This new Federated version of pay for posting would seem to make their arguments *blindingly* hypocritical but I want to hear from those guys first.

joeduck

Welcome to the birth of conversational marketing.

It's making people like you and me, who came from the world of traditional newspapers, have to learn about three-way conversations. We have already witnessed the evolution of the two-way conversation among authors and readers that is replacing old-fashioned one-way journalism. Even our old employers (yours at the Financial Times, mine at The New York Times) are now actively bringing their readers into two-way conversations.

So the next step, naturally, is for marketers to want to join the conversation. It can be done in ethical, responsible ways, and FM's authors are among the first to figure out how to do it.

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.

We're carefully expanding conversational marketing based on all kinds of new ideas that are coming from authors, marketers and our sales reps. We're drafting a set of principles for conversational marketing that will help everyone, inside FM and across the industry, frame the discussion about how we do this the right way. And we're taking care at every step of the process to make sure we don't compromise the editorial integrity of our authors. Because our authors are in constant conversation with their readers, they know how their audience feels. If a reader feels an author has crossed a line or betrayed the reader's trust, that author will hear about it quickly.

You're right to be skeptical; we should all be watching carefully to make sure we do this right. We certainly are.

Best,
Neil Chase
Vice President
Federated Media Publishing

nchase

Nick Denton

Blackjack