Wordpress Matt On TechCrunch’s Social Responsibility
A few days ago Matt Mullenweg (Wordpress Matt), not to be confused with Matt Cutts (a Google company man), wrote about the ongoing debate for and against paid posts and text link ads. The post starts off like this: “Mike Arrington on TechCrunch did an interesting thing a few days ago,” [links added by me]. Several lines later Matt says “I would encourage the crew at TechCrunch to re-examine their advertising and implicit endorsement of Text Link Ads, which pollutes the blogosphere in the same way PayPerPost does”. The really interesting part is where the comments begin. Arrington replies as does Ted Murphy, founder of PayPerPost & IZEA. Read the full post + comments here.
Matt has no right to call anybody out. He has been caught with some pretty shady antics. :o
Personally I prefer paid posts to any sort of ad. It still speaks of the personality I have come to read without cluttering the layout. At the end of the day, everybody has to know their readers and what they will go for.
I haven’t followed up on all I’ve read about Matt, I’m sure there are some mistakes somewhere.
I too think it’s up to the blogger to decide what kind of blog they run. You can be honest or shady. It’s totally up to you. Infomercials have been around for a long time. Nobody questions a TV network’s commitment to its viewers because they allow other folks to buy air time. It’s not exactly the same but it’s not far removed either.
I don’t support the liars and cheats who want you to believe they loooove everything they review simply because they’ve been paid to write. However, getting paid to write a review you would end up doing later anyway is quite fine. I have a backlog of sites and services I plan to review. If I’m approached by a site owner for a paid review I’m happy to do it. I get the opportunity to add new content and they get the exposure they’re seeking. If the site doesn’t fit with tinymeme then I don’t take the opportunity, simple.
I think the biggest problem with any paid posts, or links for that matter, started when people were doing any and every opportunity that came their way. I’m selective. If I find the product or site of interest to me, and perhaps my readers, then I will write about it. I don’t choose to write about gambling or sites of that nature because, well, when have I ever discussed gambling? We’re all guilty of it-even some of the so-called A-Listers who are laying blame on us lowly, beneath them, bloggers.
Dec 4th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
[...] week I linked you to a paid post debate sparked by comments from Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. Today he gets a not-so-fabulous award [...]