Self Portrait?




Let me start this post by stating some very clear economic and political opinion. I am without question an Adam Smith loving, true blue; card carrying Conservative, laissez- faire’ophile (neologism alert!) and omnivore. Blogosphere monetisation is not for me something to be met with disdain, gasps and an opportunity to ‘swan-dive’ onto the fainting couch like a delicate Victorian lady. We leave such things as the preserve of the hemp-wearing, banjo playing cyber-liberals (check their LastFM profiles, they’ll be listening to Pete Seeger).

Ok, so that’s 50% of the audience gone (proves my non-commercial credibility) - so let’s get down to brass tacks.

I’ve been reading ‘all over town’ about this thing called Izea and SocialSpark. The idea is to connect marketers with influential bloggers (safe again!) for product placement deals, paid blog posts and product reviews, ‘opinion leadership’ and what has been referred to as blogomercials (although I only found 170'ish hits on Google, so here is a new buzzword that few are yet throwing around). It makes me chuckle at the thought of a paid legion of cool 'kids' selling out to become a geek-a-zoids version of the BCBG (more Francophile showing off!).

Now as I stated, profit generation and innovative enterprise is to be encouraged. What I have a nagging concern about though in terms of blogomercials and what could become an Infomercial Web (at least in pockets - bad pun I accept) is the ability to discern paid opinion, independent opinion and review and paid (or indeed free) endorsement. Paid endorsement, where the product or service is genuinely chosen is not necessarily ‘questionable’, but in traditional media, advertising standards and regulation are strict and well policed. It is also usually ‘possible’ to determine (or at least suspect) when someone is writing an independent review or if they have ‘received a bung’.

Ferocious honesty is one of the blogosphere's appealing characteristics and I do hope we will not lose sight of this (we have scale in our favour now, so I think this is relatively safe). Money making is an understandable driver but across a completely fragmented and unregulated platform (the goo of Web2) blog marketers need to consider and ideally adopt self-regulation and ethical standards.

If something stinks, please don't use your influence to tell others it 'stinks of roses'. Influential bloggers and Social Media marketers have a responsibility to regulate their own activities and consider the interests of those they influence as well as those who 'pay the bills'.

Please don't let me down. I really cant do sandals, salads or Pete Seeger - and I think the best thing to do with a banjo is to make it into a tambourine!