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Posts with tag: payperpost | Return to BloggersBlog.com Homepage
Pay Per Post Calls Itself a Rockstar Startup
 Pay Per Post has ramped up the cheese factor with an online reality tv show called RockStartup.com (thx Jeff Jarvis). The website features videos of the Pay Per Post
startup in action as well as video profiles for all
of the "rockstars" (Pay Per Post employees). There is also one for chief Rockstar Ted
Murphy who gives a Strange Brew shoutout in his
video bio. Pay Per Post even has a monster truck called
The Blue Monster. That's the Blue Monster pictured above.
The Internet is great. Even if you are not a rockstar startup
you can just launch a website with videos and pretend you are one.
In one of the video clips the Pay Per Post (PPP) team hires promo girls to help them acquire PPP signups at bars near Florida State University. The next day they also tailgate an FSU football game with the same promo girls to hand out free stuff and money to people that sign up for Pay Per Post. It's very cheesy stuff but sometimes cheese works. In this particular case it ended up being too expensive and PPP spent more money than they wanted to and came up short on subscribers. Valleywag calls the RockStartup site a startup's awful reality and Jason Calacanis says "these videos are going to go down in history as the tipping point in the Web 2.0 bubble."
On the other hand, Between the Lines says "the blogosphere is going to have to get used to these guys."
A detailed article from ClickZ about companies like Pay Per Post, Creamaid and ReviewMe that pay bloggers to write reviews says HP is one of the companies planning to pay Posties (bloggers that use PPP) to write reviews about digital cameras.
Posted on February 1, 2007
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The Death of AdSense Meme
Why so many Death of AdSense or AdSense is Dead type posts? Here's one reason why.
Bloggers are getting paid for discussing some Death of AdSense book or newsletter by PayPerPost.com. This campaign ran from September 14th to October 14th and apparently paid $10 per post. We have no way of knowing if it is being renewed for another month because and PayPerPost.com now blocks the opportunities page from non-members (we are not a member).
Aside from the ad campaign there is also some genuine discussion taking place. Some bloggers do think AdSense revenues could drop if there is too much click fraud going on or if Google is hampered by expensive click fraud lawsuits. Other bloggers think AdSense will continue to perform well. For some recent discussion of AdSense and click fraud see posts here, here, here and here.
Speaking of PayPerPost.com, someone has a blog (via Blog Herald) that is all paid posts from PayPerPost.com. This blogger loves beach wedding invitations and whatever else is offered on PayPerPost.com.
Posted on October 13, 2006
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PayPerPost Raises $3 Million
 TechCrunch reports that PayPerPost, a controversial third party advertising service that pays bloggers for blogging about products and services, has raised $3 million in a round of financing.
The service is a marketplace for advertisers to pay bloggers to write about products for a fee. Commenters to our original post were polarized into those violently for and those againt the product. The key area of controversy is the fact that advertisers can mandate that posts be positive on the product, and disclosure of payment is optional for the blogger (screen shot at end of post shows sample available writing opportunities).
The controversy didn't stop venture capitalists from quickly jumping on board, though. On Tuesday PayPerPost will announce a $3 million round of financing led by Inflexion Partners and with participation from Villiage Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Dan Rua from Inflexion and Michael Barach from Villiage Ventures will take board seats. Josh Stein from Draper Fisher Jurvetson will become a board observer.
TechCrunch is correct that there were some polarized bloggers when the service was announced several months ago but there was some indifference as well. You can see our roundup of blog coverage from PayPerPost's launch here. TechCrunch's post about PayPerPost's launch is here.
A list of the current ad opportunities for bloggers can be found here on PayPerPost's site. It looks like PayPerPost currently pays in a range of about $2.5 to $12 for a post depending on what the individual advertiser is paying. That could amount to some decent revenues for an individual blogger who doesn't mind blogging about a variety of different products and services -- and who isn't afraid their readers won't mind. However, PayPerPost alone isn't likely to generate enough revenues for a blogger to be able to quit his or her day job. For far more impressive revenues take a look at this story today from MarketWatch. Frank Barnako is reporting that Rocketboom is now charging $80,000 for a week of ads in their video blogs. Now that is some serious revenues. Of course, most blogs don't have anywhere near Rocketboom's traffic so they typically settle for a third party ad service or a combination of third party ad services.
Posted on October 2, 2006
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New Site Offers to Pay Bloggers Per Post
A blogstorm has erupted about a new service called PayPerPost.com that does just what the name implies: promises to pay bloggers per post for promoting a product or service in a blog post. Here is a list of the current opportunies that range from fast loan offers to Spider-Man 3. Matthew Ingram has a good post that summarizes the events so far. A BusinessWeek article called "Polluting the Blogosphere" first discussed PayPerPost.com. PayPerPost.com now has "As Seen in BusinessWeek" as part of its logo. Here is a little of what BusinessWeek had to say.
Murphy is launching PayPerPost.com, which will automate such hookups between advertisers and bloggers and thus codify a new frontier of product placement. Advertisers pay to post details about their "opportunity," specifying, among other things, how they want bloggers to write about, say, a new shoe, if they want photos to be included, and whether they'll pay only for positive mentions. Bloggers who abide by the rules get paid; heavily trafficked blogs may command premium rates. Those seeking to subvert PayPerPost from within can't: No pornographic or "illicit" content is accepted.
Murphy's approach used to be more ad hoc. He made invitations through e-mail via the BlogStar Network, which he started in 2004. BlogStar paid nicely -- a flat fee of $5 or $10 per post. "Easy money...go buy a burger or something," advised a BlogStar invitation from 2005 soliciting posts about cable network TNT's basketball commercials featuring HBO character Ali G. That come-on also told bloggers "we definitely appreciate more positive posts."
TechCruch followed with a critical post called "PayPerPost.com offers to sell your soul." This led to much more criticism of PayPerPost.com. Here are some comments from bloggers which have ranged from negative to indifferent to curious about PayPerPost.com.
Jason Calacanis: "The currency of blogging is authenticity and trust... you pay folks to blog about a product and you compromise that. I would almost care about this, but it's so obvious to everyone that this is either a joke or an idiot that there is nothing more to say."
Scott Karp at Publishing 2.0 calls it the swift-boating of the blogosphere: "It's the Swift-Boating of the blogosphere. Once you've been slimed, there's nothing you can do to shake it off."
Brandstorming gives 6 reasons why they think PayPerPost.com is going to fail.
Rob Hyndman says who cares: "The 'sphere's explosive growth has diluted its much vaunted authenticity, and the proportion of bloggers who reliably speak with unblemished candour is dimishing exponentially (and with it, the number of feeds I follow)."
Evilvlog notes a comment on the TechCrunch post that compares this type of advertising to ads heard on the radio -- like when the DJ promotes a product.
Mark Evans: "It's a just a business launched by an entrepreneur who sees an opportunity to make some money. The one major flaw within PayPerPost's strategy is there is no requirement for bloggers to disclose they're receiving a fee. This needs to be fixed ASAP."
Elliot Black: "See, blogging is about personal expression. If I want to blog about Peculiar Blue Dinosaurs, and Pay Per Post will happen to offer me a commission for writing about it, why say no? The only possible moral confusion I see is where the incentive is enough to sway a blogger's opinion about the service, which for a successful, popular blogger is unlikely." In a follow-up post Elliot Black analyzes the comments on Digg and TechCrunch.
PayPerPost.com CEO Ted Murphy has an "Apparently I am the Devil" post on the PayPerPost blog: "There is quite a discussion going on over at Techcrunch.com about this service. People are all over the board making some very broad generalizations. I have been called just about everything under the sun today. We are just going to go ahead and take the site down. LOL. Never!" This post about which blogs sent PayPerPost traffic is an interesting one.
Mark Evans has a good point about there not being a disclosure requirement. Maybe bloggers who use the site will do this on their own. Most complaints about advertising crossing into editorial (whether in print or online) have been when the mention of a product or service is not disclosed as being paid for. See more discussion of PayPerPost.com on TechMeme.com, Technorati, TailRank and IceRocket.com.
Posted on July 1, 2006
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