sMoRTy71.com: I think Ted Murphy has a point [edited]

Thursday, March 29, 2007

I finally got around to listening to Jason Calacanis' podcast with Ted Murphy, CEO of PayPerPost. Of course, PPP is the marketing company that allows marketers to pay for product reviews in blogs. Calacanis has been the biggest basher of the service over the past couple of months saying that it has the potential to ruin the blogosphere.

However, after listening to Murphy on the podcast, I think he has a great point. If someone is being *truthful* with their review, who really cares if they got paid to write it or not. All I care about, as a reader, is if the reviewer is being honest in their opinion about the product.

Calacanis says that everyone should put a disclaimer in the first line of their blog post that says they got paid. But why?

I think it is understood by most anyone who reads a review from a site or publication that takes *any* advertising. It always has to be buyer/reader beware because anyone could have a financial motivation to what they write. That's just common sense.

I, personally, wouldn't use PayPerPost because I just write about stuff that interests me on my blog. However, I'm not going to fault someone who writes an *honest* review of a product and gets paid for it (with or without disclosure on the post).

[EDITED 3/29/2007:] Removed poorly-worded argument that made me look like a dumbass. Sorry, David

¶ 10:19 AM

Comments:

You wrote: "Is he being truthful in his reviews? Maybe. I have no way of knowing."

Sure you do! Look it up!

First of all, the Times HAS no tech advertisters that I know of (at least, not whose products I review)--except Microsoft. (This is why they canned the Circuits section a couple years ago.)

So your first research might be to read my reviews of Microsoft products.

You'd discover that I'm not what you'd call a fan of many Microsoft efforts, which sort of destroys your theory.

If you ever do see tech advertising in the Times, go to nytimes.com and see how my coverage of them seems to fall.

You would discover that my reviews have absolutely, positively nothing to do with the advertising. I get paid the same for a bad review and a good one--so *I* have no incentive, financial or otherwise, to please an advertister.

If you really think about it, what any reviewer wants most of all is INFLUENCE. Everyone wants to be the critic whose words have power.

And the way you get there is through credibility, week in, week out--telling the truth. It would be foolish for me to let any other influence affect my conclusions.

--David Pogue

posted by

pogueNYT : 5:38 PM

Sorry, David. The dialogue in my head made sense, but it clearly came out wrong once I typed it.

http://www.smorty71.com/2007/03/sorry-david-pogue.html

posted by

sMoRTy71 : 8:42 PM