Blogs-for-Hire: The Ongoing Debate

Robin Raskin at Yahoo Tech wrote an article about paid blogging that started with:

But then does a little pirouette with this dig:

What’s unethical about it? Is the radio announcer that does a commercial in the context of his show without disclosing it being unethical? What about product placement in movies? What about advertorials in newspapers and magazine? At least these are disclosed in a manner similar to bloggers.

What about corporate blogs, with which no one seems to have a problem?

I don’t understand the double-standard being applied to blogging. It’s like blogging (or Blogging, if you will) is some sort of untouchable art form that’s being made “dirty” by the introduction of compensation.

Here’s an announcement: Every post I write is not necessarily worth reading. This is hardly high art. And I’ve read a lot of your blogs Blogs, and I can say that most of you have good days and bad days, too. In fact, there are only a few I care to read daily, and most of the blogs Blogs I’ve found that have the holier-than-thou attitude about blogging Blogging are not real interesting anyway.

So, let’s get over the notion that blogging Blogging has some kind of undeserved purity. Blogging is a communication vehicle. Some people want to communicate about a product or service or website in which other people might be interested. Some people want to communicate about how their boyfriend can’t satisfy their emotional needs. How a post about beach-house rentals affects the integrity of a 21 year-old’s poetry website is beyond me.

A final word from Robin:

My point exactly.

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