I missed much of the brouhaha on how paid elite bloggers to participate in the People Ready campaign. I don’t doubt the integrity of people like Om Malik, Paul Kedrosky, etc. Their credentials are so strong that events like this will not affect them. But I would have expected them to put a disclosure in the posts. That would have added to the credibility. You can call me old school. I do understand that marketing is conversation but all conversations cannot be marketing. Under such a scenario, how do I know that the conversation I am having with a person I trust, is a marketing one or his sincere opinion. I liked the response given by Om Malik on this issue. It definitely raised my respect towards him. In fact, Dave Winer nails this issue correctly when he says
Second, and this is the really important one. It’s one thing to let Microsoft buy space on your site (it’s called advertising) and quite another to accept Microsoft money for words coming out of your mouth. Next month when we read something positive on these sites about Microsoft, how are we supposed to know if it’s an opinion, or just another example of being paid to say something supportive of Microsoft.
