Guest User

Tete-A-Tech

A walk down the Yellow Brick Road of Malaysia's Corridor of the future

by Bernice Low, Malaysia

Subscribe to this blog

Welcome to the Floggosphere...

May 12, 2009 22:32

Opening disclosure: I am paid a stipend to write this blog for CNET. The opinions expressed, however, are my own.

A few weeks ago, a friend who is in the SEO (search engine optimization) business drew my attention to a popular blog (here's a clue: Follow the cheese) which featured a writeup on Malaysia Airlines domestic flights. He grumbled and complained about the excessively blatant nature of the product placement--"this is pay per blog!" he declared.

The blogger in that case had very obviously over-egged the pudding as well, making her blog a little too fawning to have been a truly objective account. I mean, when you have flight schedules and diagrams that clearly and obviously have come from the "client" (complete with logo) displayed as part of the blog, that is a giveaway that the neutrality of the post is in question. Extolling the virtues of airline food is also a rather outright tell that some kind of quid pro quo has likely taken place (and we're not talking money necessarily).

This, in my view, has become the great challenge the Malaysian bloggosphere faces: How to control the insidious commercialization of blogs, resulting in many blogs that are, in reality, flogs--blogs for flogging stuff.

Now, I have no issue with a blog earning income from Google AdWords or NuffNang (Malaysia's homegrown blog ad technology provider). Indeed, a number of Malaysian bloggers make a good income from Google AdWords and I have no gripe with them. What I do have an issue with are bloggers who have received goods or services or monetary payment in exchange for their posts, but do not disclose this to their readers when they offer up their glowing product review or writeup of the service, product or business. This is pay per post/blog, no matter how you cut it. And I feel there is a distinct whiff of dishonesty in this kind of blogging.

Part of the blame, of course, lies at the door of ad agencies. Yes, those evil institutions of "Mad Men" fame who go around dangling incentives in front of bloggers to snag some valuable digital PR. I personally question the wisdom of doing such blatant digital PR. But perhaps digital ad agencies don't have as high a view of the average Malaysian blog reader (i.e. that Malaysian blog readers are such a gullible lot, they'll swallow anything they read online as the gospel truth). Or digital ad agencies are simply following the numbers, sheep-like. In this case, the traffic that certain blogs attract. Then there's the "need to spend the budget" reason. If a client has allocated a certain amount of money to a digital campaign and that money NEEDS to be spent. And increasingly in tight times, digital campaigns and advertising are good bang for buck--the reporting technology makes the client feel like the ad agency can't fudge the numbers on response and in most instances, they get to collect a nice bunch of addresses and personal data at the same time.

Equally to blame (or perhaps more to blame?) for the conversion of the bloggosphere into a floggosphere are the bloggers who participate in such subterfuge by failing to reveal whatever incentives (monetary of otherwise) that they have received, in exchange for their blog per post. There are rumors circulating of certain individual blogs commanding as much as RM10,000 for a pay per post.

Now, bloggers who receive money to pay per post may well argue that they would have objectively arrived at the conclusion that the particular product, service or company is good anyway, without the incentives offered to them. And some may argue that there's nothing wrong with making money from pay per -post seeing as they have worked hard to maintain their blogs and keep them updated. After all, this is a free world. It's not like they're holding a gun to their readers' heads and demanding that the readers read the blog.

Well, it's the ethics of this that stink. And the evident lack of understanding of what it means to respect your audience, even if they don't respect themselves. And it violates the whole ethos of blogging, which is about giving independent voices (remember citizen journalism?) the opportunity to be heard without the control and taint of traditional media which, in Malaysia, answers only to the voice of Government or the dollar.

Having formerly been a journalist, I am familiar with the freebies that come with attending press conferences (my favorite gifts were umbrellas, notepads and pens) and perks called junkets, which in the good old days, involved being flown business class and put up at really nice hotels. (Unfortunately, as I was a part-time journo, those didn't get thrown my way). With the exception of certain newspapers (The Edge Options being one of them, KLUE being another that comes to mind), all food reviews invariably are written by a journalist who has eaten there on the invitation of the restaurant owner or management. Which is why they are invariably glowing or tepid at best.

Journalists were in some respects indirectly "paid" to write articles about certain companies, products or services this way.

The bloggosphere shouldn't go this way. It should strive to maintain its independence as far as possible, and bloggers need to commit to that goal or risk losing the unique position of blogs (and their power to influence) in the emerging New Media sphere.

I have less of an issue with AdWords-driven blogs. A person who comes to a blog with AdWords is aware that the person is earning income from AdWords and so would realize that some of the posts may be skewed to score AdWords revenue. And as anyone who has tried to make money from AdWords knows, traffic doesn't count. The blogger gets paid only on clickthrough. And it's only going to be a matter of time before clickthrough no longer pays bloggers and Web site owners, and conversion (meaning, real $ changing hands from the clickthrough) becomes the basis for payment.

Branding and PR agencies, in my view, should also consider if this is the right thing to do long term for their clients and their brands. If paying bloggers for posts is a means in which to exert control over the bloggosphere, caveat emptor. The bloggosphere's growth was very unexpected and unpredictable, and who knows how the reaction will be as more and more blogs become more blatant flogs.

All it takes is one person out there who decides to start a "hater site" in response to all the flog sites (think of the various [insert brand here]sucks.com Web sites and you get the idea) and a new revolution is born.

There's also the question of the value of such content and such exposure, seeing as it is not any kind of quality endorsement given its lack of objectivity. A consumer knows he is reading an advertisement when he looks at one in the newspaper or television. Even with so-called "branded content", media products are usually quite obvious in their placement. In an ideal world, blog readers can tell when they're reading product placement (especially when the pudding is over-egged), but that's not always the case. However, imagine what could happen when one day, those gullible blog readers wake up and discover they've been... had?

Would you keep reading your favorite blog if you discovered the blogger had taken money or services in exchange for writing about that product or service?

« Prev

Report offensive

Talkback

RyanM

View profile

Send mail

RyanM says...
Great post Bernice, and I couldn't agree more. Also having a journalist background I'm familiar with the swag lauded on journos for their attendance and/or coverage of events. But it was my experience that one of the ethical high-grounds traditional media had over bloggers was that generally editorial and advertising departments were kept separate and kept at odds - or such was the practice of the publisher I worked for.

Editorial is what gives you a creditable product to distribute, ads keep the lights on. It's a symbiotic relationship that has a very Darwinian balance to it. If that credibility is lost, the readership is gone and the advertisers are disinterested. Ironically, it's in an advertisers long-term best interest to not push paid-posts or advertorials.

With the exception of briefly experimenting with paid posting on my private blog, and then only with subjects I could write objectively about, I've always had a strong stance about keeping ads separate from content. It's harder in the blog world, but I agree that it is something every blogger should at least consider before following the carrot being dangled in front of them.

May 16, 2009 14:32

Comment

Report offensive

About Bernice Low

Bernice Low is a screenwriter and pen-for-hire. At age 11 (in the era of BB--Before Blog) Bernice started her own newspaper, the Daily Jelly. It lasted two days before she was stopped from using school newsprint supplies for frivolous activities. She loves Cartoon Network's Bill and Mandy, has a thing for TV doctors House and MacDreamy, and is the proud owner of a 32-inch flat-screen TV. She believes diamonds and iPods are a girl's best friend. Her blog is her latest guilty pleasure.