Limes with Orange

There's this guy over at TechCrunch who seems to have made it his life's mission to bash this internet initiative called PayPerPost. I looked around his site to see what made him feel that his opinion is so much more valid than everyone else's. On the "About" page of the site it says:

"TechCrunch, founded on June 11, 2005, is a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. In addition to new companies, we will profile existing companies that are making an impact (commercial and/or cultural) on the new web space. TechCrunch is edited by Michael Arrington, who also writes a companion blog, CrunchNotes."

Obsessively? Hmm... what a very interesting choice of words. Shall we have a chat with Dr. Freud about that?

Anyway, Arrington's most recent post is entitled: "PayPerPost Chronicles Their Amorality" where he bashes rockstartup.com, which records the birth of PayPerPost. Arrington goes on to refer to PayPerPost as an "ethically-challenged startup."

Reading his multitudinous previous posts on the subject, I gather that he objects to the fact that PayPerPost doesn't require people to disclose that they are receiving compensation for a particular post within the post itself, and yet he goes on to say it's "absurd" that PayPerPost recommends that every blogger that posts for them has a Disclosure Policy on their site.

Umm... let me get this straight, Arrington wants bloggers to disclose, but considers it absurd unless they do it in every single post. If you're giving your honest review about something (and your readership is aware that sometimes you get paid), should you really have to go out of your way to say—in that very post—that you're getting paid for your opinion in this particular case? Especially when it's simply an honest opinion, not an ad. (Arrington has ads all over his site which is highly distracting. I wonder if he actually agrees with every company that advertises there.)

And speaking of opinions, Arrrington is under the false assumption that "bloggers are required to only express positive comments" which is patently untrue. Some advertisers with PayPerPost do request positive comments, but the majority of them ask for neutral reviews. Plus, bloggers have the option of not blogging about something that they don't agree with. Apparently Arrington credits bloggers with little sense and even less intelligence. Wait a minute... isn’t he a blogger, too?

Labels: blogging, rant