Yesterday I took up an easy ten buck paid post opportunity. All I had to do was read a blog post on the TechCrunch site and then write 100 words about what I thought about it. I wasn't being paid to take a side, I was being paid to post 100 words that outlined my opinion on the matter. Sounds simple doesn't it? I think if you read the post itself, you be hard pressed to argue that I was trying to hide the fact I was being paid to post. Who would have thought that a nonsensical throwaway post could provoke so much venom?
I did get a nice little write up on the Practical Blogging website. Indeed, I was quite honoured that my story was one of the "odder" stories the author had seen.
They did raise some pertinent points:
"My first reaction to the story is that 1-this fellow doesn’t know who Arrington is." This is very true. I have no idea who this guy is.
"Being that he’s a tech blogger I find it highly unlikely that he’s not stumbled upon TechCrunch before." I don't really consider myself a 'tech blogger', and up until yesterday I don't think that I'd ever visited TechCrunch before.
"More likely it just didn’t impress upon him the A-list status of Mike..." So true.
"This reminds me that while we put a great deal of stock into A-list and status, the large majority of the blogsphere do not care where we rank." Again, so very spot on!
I did not realise that an "A-list" existed, but I guess that just means my name isn't on it.
My favourite part of the post is the final throwaway line, "Oh, and I’m NOT getting paid to write this post, by the way." This statement might carry a great deal more weight, had it not been posted on a page full of ads served by Google, Blog Ads, Text Link Ads and Amazon. I take the point that the author wasn't receiving payment directly for posting their think piece. But, you have to wonder, with so many ads present on the page, what was the authors motivation for writing the piece? Would they be writing at all if they weren't drawing some kind of income from all the advertising on their site?
The website itself is described as "Helping bloggers and webmasters increase their income via Adsense, Affiliate Advertising and General Blogging Help." They may not be receiving payment from PayPerPost, but if you were cynical you could argue that they are using the whole issue to generate further traffic to their site, and therefore increase their own revenue.
If the spike in traffic I received to my crusty little site yesterday is any indication, then I'm sure both the parties involved in this little controversy are rubbing their hands together.
The fact is, I can sure as hell use the money to pay some bills, so when an opportunity to make some money comes along I'll take it. I wouldn't take on an opportunity if it meant promoting or saying something I wasn't comfortable with. So that's that.
p.s
To the person that asked me "whats it like, being a twopenny whore?" I don't know how to answer that. Perhaps you better run off and ask your mother.
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