Marc Canter and Marqui's Corporate Blog: Talking About Talking

My opinion: Disclosure is the most important thing about all of this. Every blogger in the Marqui program that has blogged about Marqui, has fully disclosed that they are being paid to share their opinion about Marqui.

I don't think this is necessarily the greatest advertising tool, but it is perfect for getting feedback from smart people.

It is the equivalent of doing a focus group, where random people come together to help guide the direction of a company. The only difference is that the results and the discourse are published.

Yes, there is potential that a blogger might write "nice" about Marqui, but being privy to the backchannel emails, I doubt that that the group that is blogging for Marqui now would ever sell out for a few hundred bucks. And if they did, I am sure that you and Jason Calacanis would be all over that.

I think there are good things about Marqui that we all need to learn from. There are millions of companies out there that could benefit from our feedback. And we can't manage to talk about anyone other than google and a few other companies. There has to be a way to get bloggers to give quality feedback about other companies too. Marqui is a way to do that. I think it should be built on.

I'd say go for taking the sponsorship money from Marqui. Just make it clear what you are being paid to do. That's what's important.

If you don't do it, I'd be glad to.

Every time I read about this I get the feeling:

Great ,they've invented the "Infomercial".

Works great on TV but then you don't have to think to watch TV you dont even have to be in the same room.

Maybe I'm just cynical that everyone transforms blogging with a lowercase b into Blogging, Inc, the Greatest Honest Communications Medium since The NY Times.

Good grief. I'm paid to host a conversation. I'm a person. I'm not the last bastion of The One True Transparency. I'm just a regular joe who doesn't object to the topic since it's about a piece of publishing software, and I know that there are readers of my blog who might benefit from the awareness of the product. My voice, er, my "Voice" is not tainted and it hasn't altered my credibility one iota in any direction. (Okay well being part of the buzz is nifty, but whateVah)

With all due respect to my esteemed colleagues (with whom I am also a contributor to their projects- Stowe, Jason, AND Marc), the general reaction I get from everyone outside of our little chamber is a big, fat shrug of the shoulders.

As I mentioned in my post the other day, I think the reason why you and Jason are jumping up and down so much is that it threatens your business model:

"Both of them use blogs, very successfully I might add, as the foundation of their publishing empires. So the last thing they want is for weblogs to become, or appear to become, impure or tainted. That's not a good look when trying to attract advertisers and audiences."

However I have no issue with that. Indeed I admit, as one of the Marqui paid bloggers, that I am not entirely comfortable writing about a product on my weblog. The words "advertorial" or "informercial" come to mind - and that's not what I want my blog to be. So yes, the line between "editorial" writing and advertising is a big issue... and I haven't yet found a comfortable approach to it.

What I ended up suggesting in my post was this (repeated here because I can't be bothered rephrasing it):

"And that's how I now think of my arrangement with Marqui. They're my patron - supporting my niche writing on Web Technology. And it works both ways, because the main benefit Marqui has gotten out of this (apart from all the free publicity from people arguing about the ethics of it all) is a big injection of PageRank. Any advertorials that people have written for them are of less value to Marqui, I believe, than the Google rank and sheer buzz they've gotten from this program."

This is based on a Ben Hammersley article (Ben has a cigar company patron, as you know). Am I deluding myself that the Marqui deal is a patronage one for me? Perhaps. But it's definitely the kind of sponsorship deal I'd *like* to have.

ps your comments system has a bug - it won't let in the words "webDOTcom" (replace DOT with "."). As my URL has that in it, it therefore refuses to let me link my name to my blog. Bah.

yes, it seems like a Jesuitical (is there such an adjective ?) compromise to me, and more complex than paying bloggers to blog ... I can't get past my sense that paying bloggers is a bit like outsourcing your communications capabilities, but with the added benefit of a reasonable guarantee that potential customers within the audience aren't likely to get as much (or any ?) spin ... and goodness knows, the rafters have been ringing with the calls for authenticity in the business / marketing world for how long now ?

I understand clearly your point(s) about tainting the "conversation -

"I maintain that accepting a fee specifically to mention a product or company is a form of spam -- not quite as odious as comment spam, but spam nonetheless. It breaks a implicit covenant between blogger and community, where the words written express the authentic interests of the blogger, not an exchange of blog entry real estate for fees" - Stowe Boyd

but it seems to me that the acceptability of this turns on which is foremost in the blogger's paid blogging ... the authenticity of her or his perspective, points of view and experience, or the fact that she/he is paid to mention the company or product.

If it were just the latter, I think I'd have more problems with it ... I'd be more cynical. From what I understand, the track record thus far of the Marqui bloggers is pretty solid, in terms of writing what they think, good or bad. And I think in that lies all the difference.

Whereas in Corante accepting sponsorship from Marqui to participate in a debate on Marqui's program .... well, it would seem to me that you will be damned if you take a firm position against (in a sense) or for (in another sense), and you'll be damned if you waffle in between. Your choices are narrowed ... and not by you but by the offer, no ?

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck. Being paid to write about a subject...is just that. There's nothing wrong with it. It's called advertising or PR or traditional journalism. But you can't call it a blog if you define a blog as an ongoing conversation with your friends and neighbors, customers and prospects, vendors and sneezers. Do you need money to talk to people about things you're passionate about? That's the power of blogs. The spontaneity, enthusiasm and passion of someone writing in the moment. Unfiltered, direct from the source, straight from and to the heart.

It's ok the Marquis writers are being paid to write about things. But it's not blogging.

It's odd though that Marq complains about the dearth of ideas to write about...sad. I think most bloggers have a dearth of time to write. The subjects though are plentiful.