Comments on: People Ready for conversational marketing please disclose yourself, or better yet just go away.

By: JoeDuck

JoeDuck — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:15:44 +0000

FG I think you are correct that disclosure is key. Many ships have long ago sailed with respect to blending news, commercial interest, internet, etc. Thus the strongest way to protect “the public interest” is probably to make sure we all know who is paying who for what.

But, of course, even that has limitations. I don’t run ads at this blog but I do link to my sites that have ads, so how is this relationship reasonably disclosed? One approach I’d like to see is a very public and easy way to find out who owns a website, how to contact them, and some form of conflict resolution issue. This would not really have helped “People Ready” become legitimate in my eyes though.

By: FoolsGold

FoolsGold — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:57:32 +0000

“Bringing advertisers into the conversation” ???

Anyone see that WalMart thread on this site recently? What is all this nonsense? Spam sponsored by vindictive lobbyists? I wonder if I am now supposed to end this post with “Great site, very informative. Many thanks for sharing the information.”

By: FoolsGold

FoolsGold — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:36:55 +0000

A writer can be motivated by profit and he can be highly emotionally invested in his topic perhaps even obsessed with it. I think the issue is one of disclosure. Similar to a scientific journal that requires an author to announce any competing interests. Whether this would be sufficient I do not know but it would certainly be helpful.

Search engine (and links) affecting access to blogs is hardly new… its what affects access to websites also.

By: JoeDuck

JoeDuck — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:53:46 +0000

FG I think that blogging is now mature enough to start suffering from the defects you are talking about where it’s not really clear if people are writing about things from interest, profit, or (most likely) a combination of them both.

For a few years now “A list” bloggers have weilded a lot of power from linking to other sites and bloggers and starting conversations online about topics that interested *them*. Because they tended to be well informed and interesting writers that *was* a good thing initially. However this power is now metastisizing into control of the conversation by a small group, disrupting the very thing that makes blogs so intriguing as a new medium of free speech.

This is natural and expected, but it’s generally not the kind of conversation people want to hear, which is why I’m effectively boycotting some of those I used to read in favor of the people they have effectively kept out of the limelight.

By: FoolsGold

FoolsGold — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:45:31 +0000

Just as a good many “grassroots-public policy” organizations are really advocacy organizations formed by lobbyists, I imagine a good many blogs will turn out to be the creations of lobbyists and advertising agencies.

By: JoeDuck

JoeDuck — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 17:22:57 +0000

“Not desirable but no at all surprising”

Yes FG. I think it’s struck a chord (this is one of the most talked about things among tech folks right now) because blogs were suppose to help avoid this nonsense rather than encourage it.

By: FoolsGold

FoolsGold — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 16:31:32 +0000

I’m not sure what ‘conversational marketing’ is exactly having merely glanced at a few of the links but it appears that it involves the use of shills and fake weblogs. Just as some people are not able to differentiate between an infomercial’s scripted interviews and overt advertisements, there may be some who are unable to determine just how neutral a website may be. I guess a pay-for-clicks scheme was sure to eventually attract fraudsters and so is a webblog format that is really a product of an advertizing agency or a lobbyist.

Not desirable but not at all surprizing.