Archive for the 'Sorry' Category

I wish I listened to top 40 music more in high school. I really do. Because, I’m sure if I did, The Police would have been one of my favorite bands. And believe it or not, they have TWO opportunities for PaidPosting, potentially propelling the happy bloggerfan into the doubledigits in income.

I mean, sure, I know their music. Who doesn’t?

Every Breath You Take
Don’t Stand So Close To Me
Every Little Things She Does is Magic

The songs got a lot of radio airplay when I was a lad. But they want bloggers to write about their favorite concert experiences, or gush about how they “absolutely love the band” and are “ecstatic that The Police are going on a new worldwide tour” or write about their favorite song that appears on their upcoming album.

I’m creative. I could write it. But it would be a lie.

I had no idea they were going on tour. I had no idea there was a new album. I don’t own any of their albums. I have two of their songs on my computer. (2 of the 3 listed above) I must have downloaded them from ITunes.

If I could honestly do what they want, I probably would.

Sorry.

I better make it clear that the website offering these opportunities is ThePolice.com, which looks to be their Offical Fan Club, but for all practical purposes, they’re an extension of the band.

IDrive.com wants positive reviews. The name sounded familiar, so I looked at their website. They’re an Online Backup provider. Cool. Backup is good.

Of course…uploading your documents to a server, you kind of want to know who owns the server. Call me silly, if you wish. Even if all you’re uploading is some pictures from your camera, you’re using them as backup, so you don’t want the website to go under in a year.

So I clicked on the tab that said “Press”. Their press, since January of this year, consists of two press releases. And of course, when I did the google search, I discovered millions of blog posts. And I discovered why IDrive sounded familiar (but not in these blog posts…)

1) IDrive is a computer system in BMW cars.
2) There’s a wiki article on I-Drive, which **used** to own i-drive.com. (note the hyphen). It was a backup space provider too. What a coincidence! Rated highly by CNet and Fortune Magazine. No longer exists.
3) There’s a software program for backup called IDrive, offered from IBackup

So you know…it kinda looks like this website here is trying to cash in on the name of some other products past and present. So, even beyond the legal issues they might face (I’m not a lawyer), I don’t think I’m uploading any of my stuff on to their servers. Nor am I blogging positively about them.

Sorry.

I’ve been blogging since 2002. It’s a fun thing to do, and even though I talk about religion, politics, and various entertainments a lot, this is a personal blog, and always has been.

A month ago there was a discussion at StlBloggers on getting paid to blog. I looked into the concept. One of the biggest complaints from people in the StlBlogger discussion was those who don’t disclose when the posts are paid and when they’re not. I read a few blogs, and honestly, I could tell a mile away. The posts were not written in the same style.

I knew, though, if I did this, I would do my best not to make my paid posts sound like a used car dealer. I would never write anything I didn’t believe in a post. Even though some companies will pay you to write a negative review, what they are seeking are the links to their site, just like the links in spam comments, so I also would never write a negative review of a site that didn’t at least look respectable. (No Viagra, gambling, or Vacation timeshare posts.) And of course, I would categorize each post clearly, so the reader would know anyway if I succeeded in masking the nature of the post.

So I signed up with PayPerPost and waited for any opportunity that
1) I qualified for (some opportunities require a google ranking higher than I have)
2) that I could honestly accept without compromising my ethics

That was a month ago. I’m still waiting. #2 is what’s making this difficult. In that time WilWheaton attacked PayPerPost, then slightly backtracked, but not by much, and overall I agreed with what he said. The paid posts need to be obvious. PayPerPost should require disclosure on a post-by-post basis, and not allow bloggers to have a disclosure notice hidden in their sidebar saying some of their posts might be paid. Otherwise, they are as wrong as the advertisements in newspapers that are made to look like real articles.

So this post initiates two new categories on my blog. One will be obvious. It will say “Paid Post”. Considering I have yet to find something to post about that meets my strict guidelines, I don’t expect many of these.

The other category might be of more interest to some. I’ve called it “Sorry”. These are opportunities I have turned down, but I want to say something about them anyway. They may be companies only willing to pay for positive reviews, but I’m not willing to write a positive review. Or they may fall in the category: “Did you know ___ was paying bloggers to say good things about them?” Consider it a PSA. If you see someone else blog about these products/websites, it’s possible they’re being paid to do so. If your favorite 80s band is doing this – will it change your view of them?

I am interested in your input, so let me know what you think. If any part of this idea is offensive to you, I want to know. This being a personal blog, several of you know me, and are my friend, so I am naturally even more interested in your feedback.