The short of it is that they sign up advertisers who want bloggers to write about their product, service or company and then pay bloggers to do that.
This is how they pitch it:
To Advertisers:
“PayPerPost is an automated system that allows you to promote your Web site, product, service or company through the PayPerPost network of bloggers. Advertise on blogs to create buzz, build traffic, gain link backs for search engine ranking, syndicate content and much more. You provide the topic, our network of bloggers create the stories and post them on their individual blogs.”
To Bloggers:
“Get Paid to Blog. You’ve been writing about Web sites, products, services and companies you love for years and you have yet to benefit from all the sales and traffic you have helped generate. That’s about to change. With PayPerPost™ advertisers are willing to pay you to post on topics. Search through a list of topics, make a blog posting, get your content approved, and get paid. It’s that simple.”
When I was sent links to this site by readers warning bells started to go off for me for a number of reasons:
1. while in their ‘get started page’ they do say that you shouldn’t accept opportunities to advertise if you don’t own the product or if you can’t be honest about it – I can see this system being open to abuse and shallow or dodgy reviews being made of products simply to fulfill the requirements to be paid.
2. I don’t see any mention of needing to write a disclaimer that you’re being ‘paid to post’ (something I think needs to be disclosed when you’re accepting payment to write about a product). Where’s the transparency that the blogosphere was built upon?
3. there doesn’t seem to be any quality control – ie PayPerPost say just to post what you want to say and then let them know about it so that they can access the post to see if it fits requirements set out by advertisers.
4. They seem to be pimping an article written in Business Week to legitimize themselves. Unfortunately the article in question didn’t paint them in a positive light.
Ok – I should say that I don’t mind the idea of sponsored posts or being paid to write things about a company – but I’d want to ensure that that type of post was transparent and that the post added some value to the reader’s experience.
While I don’t know anything apart from what is on their site, PayPerPost leaves me feeling a little uneasy and I’d recommend caution to bloggers.
Update – it looks like I’m not alone with my concerns – TechCrunch shares them and has an interesting discussion in their comments section on the topic.
Other posts on PayPerPost include:
- PayperPost–Please Crash & Burn @ Naked Conversations
- Pay Per Post isn’t Evil – It’s a Failure @ Post Bubble
- PayPerPost Will Taint us @ Publishing 2.0
- Paid to Blog – Mountain or Molehill? @ Inkblots
- PayPerPost Stupid and Evil @ Jason Calacanis
Update II – hyku blog has an interesting post pointing out that PayPerPost looks like it’s just the new name for a previous product – the BlogStar Network which has rebranded/relaunched. BlogStar was announced back in 2005 as a project of MindComet and always seemed a little like it was going down the ‘pay per post’ type direction. Here’s a quote from their announcement press release:
“Unlike blog ad networks or search programs, BlogStar focuses specifically on integrating content directly into blogs. BlogStar Network allows marketers to go beyond simple advertising and leverage the network’s relationship with bloggers themselves. The network creates opportunities for product reviews, testimonials and focus group testing.”
Also check out this post that Duncan (then at Blog Herald) wrote about BlogStar approaching him to write a post mentioning a site in return for $10.
Interestingly I’ve written previously about BlogStar and wasn’t too impressed with their approach after a bit of digging last time either.
