PayPerPost stirring contoversy, filming web reality TV show
Thursday, December 21, 2006
PayPerPost, a new start-up is causing quite the controversy (especially on TechCrunch) in the blogosphere. The company, who recently raised $3 million in venture capital, is connecting advertisers with bloggers that are willing to write about their products for payment. Essentially bloggers log into the PayPerPost site and search listings of advertisers and corresponding payments a blogger would get for blogging about them. This practice looks very similar to payola in the music industry, where record companies pay money for the broadcast of records on music radio. Payola is illegal in the U.S.PayPerPost will now require disclosures amid criticism and a regulatory threat. Before this week, it was not required for bloggers to disclose that they were getting paid. Under the new policy, bloggers must disclose that they are accepting payment, either in the write-up or in a general disclosure policy on the blogger's Web journal. The disclosure can still be hidden in the "policy" or some other section of a blog that nobody reads anyway.
PPP's flamboyant founder is about 30 years old and this is the 6th company he's founded. He seems to be a bit cheesy and over-the-top, but I give him credit for creating some buzz and founding some successful companies (MindComet). He has hired a film crew to film a reality style TV show for the internet similar in style to the documentary Startup.com which came out around the time of the dot com bubble. The reality show for can be found at Rockstartup.com - the episodes are very professionally done and it's entertaining to watch a young, energetic start-up from the very beginning as they try to create a sustainable business. Check out this episode about the company and this episode where they shellac the Today Show audience with freebies.
Labels: creative biz., web 2.0
posted by Michael Tavani @ 11:52 AM |
4 Comments:
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At 3:10 PM,
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I saw their founder at the AD:tech conference and he was the cockiest guy there. I don't even know how successful his product will become.
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At 3:11 PM,
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PayPerPost is garbage but the Rockstartup show is well done. PayPerPost will lose money and momentum in the future.
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At 11:28 AM,
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The idea is actually pretty brilliant, but it does resemble payola a bit. It ill be interesting to follow how the FTC disclosure policy affects it.
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At 11:30 AM,
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Yo -- I saw that stuff about you on that My Thoughts blog. Haha. Your site looks a little more unbiased than his considering he's a PayPerPost blogger after all.
