Just when you thought it was safe to skip trustingly across the wide open meadow of web 2.0 word of mouth marketing……someone throws a cow pattie right in your path.
We at frank have been expounding on the virtues of web 2.0: the transparency, meritocracy, and sheer all-around goodness that comes from free web speech and people who are willing to put their opinions out there. We’ve blogged about the amazing new barcode-reading cell phones that help you compare product prices and user reviews. We’ve jumped up and down about the new wave of transparency that’s sure to follow.
And now the cow pattie on the path: PayPerPost.com (note: in my own little protest, this has purposely not been hyperlinked) is a new company that puts advertisers and bloggers together: bloggers get paid ($4 to $35/post) for each mention of an advertiser’s product. Bloggers are not obligated to be positive about the advertiser’s product / service in their post, nor are they obligated to reveal that they’re being paid to post about a particular product or service.
This is the anti-web 2.0, or what we at frank call “knarf” (backwards frank – get it?) behavior. It’s using web 2.0 tools to appear transparent, while hiding the true relationship between advertiser and blogger. Unethical? I think so. Illegal? Unfortunately, no.
So especially during this holiday shopping season as you’re tripping around web 2.0, just watch where you step….
