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Calacanis Meets PayPerPost
By Marisa | March 25, 2007
Since its inception, PayPerPost, the Consumer Generated Advertising marketplace, has been bashed and berated by a number of pundits throughout the blogosphere. One outspoken critic of the PayPerPost model has been Jason Calacanis, co-founder of Weblogs Inc. and affiliate of AOL and Netscape. In fact, Jason was the guy who tried to buy the top Digg users in an attempt to lure them over to Netscape’s Digg clone.
Recently, Calacanis sat down with Ted Murphy, CEO of PayPerPost, for an interesting and lively podcast interview. It’s about an hour long but it is worth watching.
As I watched this, comments and retorts were blurting from my mouth. There was so much I wanted to say to Jason, to set him straight. Ted did a fine job but he missed a few key points. Understandable since he was there, in the heat of the moment and I was able to watch at home in my recliner.
Anyway, I won’t go through the whole podcast. I want to make just one point. Calacanis used magazines and their “Advertisement” disclosure as an example of ethical journalism and to illustrate his objection to bloggers who use sitewide disclosure. I know what he had in mind; I’ve seen those obvious advertisements in magazines, too. But that isn’t an accurate analogy to what bloggers are doing. I was trying to find a better comparison when I finally gave up and retreated to my comfy chair to read my latest edition of Allure magazine. And that’s when it all came together.
Just pick up a copy of the April issue of Allure. Turn to page 174; that article caught my eye because I’ve been a mineral makeup convert for over 5 years. The article, as expected, mentioned the better known makeup brands which also happen to advertise within the pages of the magazine. No problem It was an independant article, right? Well, maybe.
On page 175, toward the end of the article, is an editorial box making mention of some mineral makeup brands. Each and every one of those brands advertise in Allure magazine. There is no notice anywhere near that box signifying the items are paying for a mention. And there are dozens of other mineral makeup companies with excellent products that could have been mentioned there as well. However, none of those companies advertise in Allure.
I will point out as well that people pay for that (and other) magazines. No one pays me to read my blog. In fact, I pay for hosting and my domain in order to publish my blog. I would have to say that magazines have more of a responsibility to explain the process by which particular brands ended up in the sidebar rather than the dozens of other equally qualifying brands that don’t buy advertising space elsewhere in the mag.
Need more examples? Just check out the various regular columns in any magazine. Brands that buy advertising within the pages of a magazine are likely to be mentioned elsewhere in the magazine, not in clearly marked advertisements but in editorial pages and regular columns as well as article sidebars.
And yet Calacanis bashes bloggers who accept the offer to review sites and products for money. You would think that Jason has never accepted compensation, in money or product, for any written or verbal review (and yes, that includes a test item if he’s allowed to keep it after reviewing it). Uh, no. I find that hard to believe. I also find it disingenuous to proclaim that his disclosure is understood within the context of his post because people know him so well yet we peon bloggers must disclose in the first sentence of a post because otherwise, we’re being deceptive. Right. Different rules for the mighty Calacanis.
I can’t help but get the impression that Calacanis’ primary objection to PayPerPost is that he didn’t think of it and implement it first. He just seems like that kind of guy, given his Digg history.
Topics: Consumer, Blogging, Op Ed |
14 Comments
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Excellent points.
Calacanis irritates me.
Yes. Arrogance annoys me. And he is.
I’ve had that same impression… I said it originally as a joke, and the more I think about it, the more I think it might actually be the case.
I’m definitely with you on everything else. I was also yelling at my computer! the whole disclosure thing was pissing me off because Calacanis expects us to disclose in the first sentence of the post saying something like “This is a sponsored post.” and yet, he seems to think that him simply using words like “when we worked on…” is enough. If it’s not enough for us, it’s not enough for him. And he invented disclosure? PLEASE. And I believe Al Gore invented the internet, too.
I’m telling you, he’s like a politician who believes laws are for everyone else except himself. That’s arrogance.
lol…I love when people that don’t invent things claim they do. Even better the ones that actually get away with it.
It seems that people like to fight for ridiculous causes these days. What the hell does he care about MY readers? If my site sucks they won’t read it.
He thinks he’s our Protector. He’s saving us from ourselves.
Maybe he ought to run for political office.
I invented the internet, I was right next to Al Gore when he said Int..
I said …ernet
Good post by the way.
Yeah, I read somewhere that you and Al Gore were separated at birth.
Great article, love the example of the magazine…the analogy brings it home, so true that the editorial staff are always sent free products, hoping they’ll get a mention
I wish he’d comment on that aspect of magazines. But he won’t because it messes up his argument.
Great post, Marisa. It has been duggeth.
I know what you mean about the magazine thing. It’s the same with everything. I scrapbook, and read pretty much all of the magazines about it out there. Each and every one does an *independent* article about the new and hot products. And each and every one of said products usually has an ad in said magazine.
Bothers me not in the least, and I never feel *deceived*, as The Donkinator says we should.
Another thing that was not brought up was the morning *news* shows. Ever watch the *Today* show or something like that, and see a fashion show, or a *cool gadgets* segment? Although they never disclose that they are being paid for featuring their products on the show, at least nowhere that I can see, it’s obvious to me that they are. Still, it doesn’t bother me.
I loved the podcast, and I think Ted did really well over some very tough questions. But still, Calacanis needs to just shut his pie-hole and leave us alone. He thinks he speaks for the blogosphere, but he does NOT speak for this blogger!
The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that Calacanis is simply jealous that PPP wasn’t his idea and that the idea he did have, i.e. buying top diggers, didn’t work. Now he’s mad at Ted for beating him to the punch.
And then there’s the issue of PPP doing so much better than his own weblogs inc.. It’s all about jealousy.
I think the funniest part was when they were talking about Google Adsense. Ted said that the Ads by Google was at the bottom of the ad. Then Calacanis in post put an ad on the screen that he found with the Ads by Google at the top, with a big WRONG title. But he didn’t also point out that a lot of ads do have that part at the bottom. Especially the most commonly used 468×60 ads.
[…] Marisa’s blog has a couple categories that jump right out at me. The addiction section, of course the blogging section. In particular, this post about Calacanis. It’s clear that Marisa takes some serious time when thinking about her blogging content to make sure she has a solid post finished when she clicks “publish”. […]