LA Times: Blogging for dollars raises questions of online ethics. Excerpt:

Blogger Colleen Caldwell rants and riffs about whatever strikes her
fancy — a run-in with her child's school principal, the rising price of
Girl Scout thin mints, an upcoming movie that caught her eye.

"Has
anyone out there read a book called 'The Ultimate Gift'? I just heard
that a movie is being made of the book (which sold 4 million copies),"
she wrote in a recent post on her site, Simple Kind of Life.

The 30-year-old software analyst from Brooksville, Fla., went on to
praise the inspirational message of the Fox Faith film, which opens
today, about a trust fund baby who discovers the joy of giving.
Caldwell noted that each member of the opening-weekend audience was
being allowed to direct a dollar of the ticket price to a charity of
the filmgoer's choice.

One
thing Caldwell didn't mention: She was paid $12 to build buzz about the
movie's opening and the charitable campaign — bringing her
blogging-for-dollars take to more than $7,700.

In her blog, Caldwell writes:

I think we “non-elite” bloggers did a good job of defending ourselves
and PayPerPost and letting people know it’s NOT all about the money.
There are things I simply won’t write about, and I won’t make things
up. I do wish they had included my URL
Side note to someone who said I am shilling people - I have always been
upfront about paid blogging here. Someone would have to be wearing
pretty big blinders to miss that fact. I don’t hide it.

That may be, but many -- perhaps most -- blog readers come to a blog, often through search engines, without having read the writer before. If you're getting paid to write about a topic, you should disclose that fact every time.

The article goes on:

"PayPerPost versus authentic blogging is like comparing prostitution
with making love to someone you care for deeply. No one with any level
of ethics would get involved with these clowns," said Jason McCabe
Calacanis, an entrepreneur who co-founded Weblogs Inc., a network of
blogs that includes popular technology site Engadget.

The
bloggers who take assignments from the likes of PayPerPost, ReviewMe,
Loud Launch and SponsoredReviews.com call the hubbub overblown. They
say the services provide a way to make a profit or keep their blogs
going. Technorati, a search engine that tracks 71 million blogs, says
175,000 are created daily.

Posties, as PayPerPost calls its crew
of 15,500 bloggers, say their posts are sincere, sponsored or not, and
that financial incentives are disclosed.

"I would never make up a lie," Caldwell said. "My sister reads my blog and she would call me out." ...

Silicon Valley venture investor Tim Draper, a PayPerPost stakeholder
and a longtime backer of online marketing companies, said ... "This is a new way of looking at advertising."

Draper
likened sponsored blogging to product placement in movies: "You put an
ad inside the text and it's more of a subtle way of advertising. It
doesn't take away from the blogger."

Draper couldn't be more wrong. I agree with Doc Searls, Dan Gilmor, Jason Calacanis, Jeff Jarvis, David Weinberger and others who believe that pay-per-post efforts to commercialize the blogosphere, often by stealth, can only have a deleterious effect on the open conversational nature of blogging.

Dan Gillmor: Pay-for-Play Bloggers Pollute Media Ethics.

JD Lasica is founder of Socialmedia.biz. We work with large companies and nonprofits on social media strategies and campaigns. See JD's business profile, contact him or leave a comment.