Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, January 30th, 2009 - 57 comments
Categories: blogs, dpf -
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I see that over at Kiwiblog DPF is hawking an Air New Zealand viral advertisement. Now DPF has had at least one junket from Air NZ and the airline is well known for its gifts to journalists and media outlets (mostly in terms of free flight). Given this situation I’d say the chances are quite good that there is at least some kind of loose arrangement between the company’s PR arm and DPF. The question is whether as an influential NZ internet figure DPF should be disclosing any such arrangement in the same way the media does (or should).
In fact as the blogosphere and bloggers come closer to the mainstream media and as their influence increases then questions about a code of ethics become more pertinent.
At The Standard we use some stock journalistic codes. In particular we do not reveal sources but we also write anonymously, which is traditional in the MSM for some editorial content and wire service news (such as NZPA stories) but not for most title-produced news. While we are providing opinion and commentary and none of us have a pecuniary interest I think that’s okay – the back catalogue of our work combined with the public critical feedback we get in our comments section means our posts are more rigorously debated and have to be more solidly constructed and fact-checked than a lot of MSM opinion pieces.
But what about when we take on advertising? Or when Standard writers such as Clint are given promotional freebies? At the moment we don’t have these concerns but some profile bloggers such as DPF and Russell Brown have already parlayed their web-presence into commercial gain as media figures and through advertising and in the US many bloggers have gone totally pro.
Every month the blogosphere’s influence on the mainstream increases. Perhaps it’s time for a voluntary code of ethics.
Update: I/S has mentioned the deal was that the hosting blog would get paid for every click on the Air NZ ad. DPF has not disclosed this in his post.
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But dad – that would be blasphemy!
Hey Sod, haven’t heard that kind of humor since third form…Do I have to be specific as to what claim you got wrong?
I’m sure there is room in the comments section to place an apology or retraction of some sort
“blasphemy!” No sod you are alright as God knows the mentally insane cannot understand things. I pray you get better one day.
Lukas – I pitch to my audience. I have no idea why I just pitched to you. Oh and DPF’s column? Watch it become more infrequent…
As for your your mum? She’s crap. It’s not surprising you never knew your dad…
edit: speaking of dads – I’m not any more crazy than you pete.
You are a sad little man Sod. Your audience at your blog appears to be fairly low in intellect, probably explains why you only post one or two posts on a month, any more and the three people who read it would have a brain overload.
Wow, its like you know my whole history…accept you happened to get it all wrong. Oh well, nice try… keep fishing, I’m sure one day one of your “sources” will accidentally get something right.
A sad little man? I’ve not heard that before. Did your dad teach you that? Oh no! My bad you didn’t have a dad. Or if you did he wasn’t sufficiently able to teach you how to conduct yourself as a decent man…
I’m glad to see you’re reading my blog. It may raise your IQ… although I suspect you are a hopeless case…
actually – I’m starting to have a thought. Are you trent/richprick/pdq/pdm? Oh dear – you’re still angry ‘cos I caught you pimping your old dead granddad…
never heard of any of those people sorry ‘sod.
I am surprised you have not heard that before. Word around Wanganui is nine out of ten women think you are a “little man”.
As opposed to your parents who taught you to be an outstanding citizen, respect your fellow man etc etc?
I suspect my IQ is sufficiently high enough. I would bore you with the details of starting university at 16, but that would only go on to depress you I suspect.
Although you claim to be starting to have a thought, my suspicion is that that is far from the truth and you have had one too many cold beverages to have a coherent thought tonight.
Sorry lukas but you’re just not showing that big IQ you’re so proud of. Quite the reverse…
It could be that you’re steady eddy but he’s too stupid to change his style past me sniffing him out… Maybe you’re prick, in which case I know exactly who you are… Go on – give’s a hint…
I’d love for you to actually attempt to find out who I was…
Broken arse ethics from anonymous cowards. Hi big blouse.
It may take a while but these things eventually come to me. Goodnight lukas.
Going on the form of your sources to date I am pretty confident that you will not find out who I am anytime soon, but please continue to guess… its rather amusing. Let’s make a game of it shall we?
Have a great night ‘sod. No doubt will see you around here next week.
My first guess as to who you are- Winston Peters…
Good night ladies
An interesting discussion. If I run an ad in the main blog again I’ll use a new tag of “paid advertisement” or something. I thought it was pretty clear, but obviously not.
I ran this one in the main blog as a bit of a test. One can also have them in the sidebar but obviously smaller. I want to see what the relative click through rates are between main blog and sidebar.
The only thing that is unfortunate about this whole situation is that DPF feels that he should even acknowledge this sort of crap.
All the lines about ethics, disclosure are complete crap especially considering the sources of those comments and their own personal history’s within the blogsphere.
As the person who arranged this campaign I am a little surprised by some of the comments here.
Personally, I think it is fantastic that large corporates would be interested in throwing some money towards bloggers for the opportunity to be included in their conversations. None of the big media companies are receiving any coin from this campaign so it’s great for smaller publishers.
If you’d like to add the viral to your site, you can sign up here.
You don’t need to put it in a post. You can add it to a sidebar or serve it through an adserver if you want.
I’m more than happy to answer any questions.
Cheers
I’m surprised that you’re surprised.
Of course people are wary of anyone wanting to join a conversation for monetary reasons.
Many of us put a very high value on the integrity of our conversations.
So if I wanted a post on KB extolling the benefits of magnets in the mattress, or bee poo extract or something, how muchee?
Reagan, it doesn’t cost anything for corporates to be involved in online conversations. Just jump on in old son. But that’s not really what you are doing is it?
Felix, I’d be more worried if money was changing hands over conversations that were being moderated.
Pb, there is always a cost for corporates to be involved in conversations. Someone isn’t going to work their spin for free.
What UM is doing is providing a better solution for a) publishers to make a much better income than the likes of adsense and b) providing advertisers a grass roots approach to reaching their audience.m
Felix
Are you Mr P Pompous ?
I’m quite sure I don’t know what you mean.