Archive - Jun 2008 - Paid Blog

I ran across this entry at BakedBlog about Amish Friendship Bread. My first thought was "10 days for a loaf of bread? That is crazy!" I then read on. She had a lot of information in the post. It was well thought out and I really appreciated how well the article was written, but I was not convinced of taking 10 days to make bread. I want it now!

It really does not take very long each day to knead the bread and it could be very relaxing. Your also supposed to share the dough with friends, so it keeps going. I like the idea of sharing. So, I'm trying it. I'm on day 1, so can't really tell you how good it is yet. I'll let you know in about 10 days.

I really think that this site is great. That is, it is great, if you like food. The blog is all about cooking and her family. I recommend checking it out. She writes nice long posts with good information. She also is the site that turned me on to PayPerPost, which means I'll get paid for this review, as you will if you review me.

I signed up with a site called PayPerPost: get paid to blog. They are a site for bloggers who want to make a little extra cash. They coordinate with businesses that want bloggers to write reviews or other information and will pay us to do so. The pay is between $5.00 and at current $125.00. To make the big money you need to meet certain criteria, such as a lot of visitors to your site, high Google PageRank, low Alexa ranking, good ratings from advertisers for your previous posts, etc.

Some people really hate the idea of PayPerPost. They think that it is evil and selling your soul to the devil. They think that getting paid for a post on your blog is fundamentally wrong. How can we have credibility in the blogging world if people are shilling out their work like this? It will be the death of the blogging world. Really, they are building up PayPerPost and giving them more advertising.

There were some legal problems with PayPerPost a while back. This caused some "posties" to loose their page rank. The FTC was also cracking down because they did not require people to disclose that it was a paid post. That seems to be required now. Even if it was not, I'd disclose, because it is ethical. I see no mentiontion of it since early 2007. I'm not sure if it just died away, or if the changes to their policy fixed Googles "smack down". I know it got the FTC off their backs.

Television and radio have been doing this for years. Have you ever watch a show and seen them zoom in on the Ford Focus or the can of Coke-a-Cola? Did you know that your favorite DJ is paid to say that he likes that product he pushes? Some DJs will only say they like it if they do, but they still have to do sales pitches. It is their job. Many bloggers have no ethical problem with PayPerPost, but still don't use them. All these points have validity, but I personally see no ethical dilemma, as long as the makes it clear they have sponsored reviews and write honest reviews, even for the sponsored ones.

So, I signed up for them. I am blogging partly to make a few extra dollars to make ends meet. I also blog because I like it. I blog about things I like and care about. Sometimes I blog about things I don't like. Sometimes I'm indifferent and am just talking about something. But one thing for sure, I will always blog what I feel and I'll be honest. So, if I am blogging about something I'm paid to blog about, I will tell you. I am getting paid for this blog entry.

Since you might not know me from Jack the Ripper, you will have no way of knowing if I am being honest, so that is why I am telling you that I am getting paid for the entry. That way, you can take that into account when you read the review.

Oh, you know your favorite movie reviewer? (S)He gets paid to review those movies. They even get into the movies for free and probably get free popcorn. Most reviewers get paid. It is up to you to decide which ones you trust. It is time that bloggers also get paid for the reviews they make.