Okay, there has to be some sort of warped irony that I am just not understanding here about the guy that offered to buy off the top users at Digg and Reddit casting mud at the bloggers that accept blog advertising from PayPerPost. He calls into question the integrity of such bloggers when his own integrity is in question?Calacanis supports another, Jay Allen, who says: "...Anyone who perpetuates such a system deserves a public stoning..." Woah, hold on folks, a public stoning because a blogger posts what they want to on their own blog? First of all, I don't see where I have injured anyone with my posts, particularly when I have made posts about things that I personally feel are of interest to the people that read my blogs. I make no secret of the fact that I gather ideas for posts from advertisers through PayPerPost or that some of my posts have been paid for by sponsors that ask for their site/product/service to be endorsed in my post. I also make no secret of the fact that I don't accept advertising from anyone that I do not feel comfortable endorsing. You want to stone me for that? You want to get pissy and call me and my fellow bloggers vile names because we *gasp* make money from blogging? What exactly is the defining line that made it so much better to pay off the top Diggers (who laughed in his face I might add) to leave Digg and blog for him?
I suppose that Calacanis must be getting used to having people laugh in his face by now, but I would also think that he might want to have his name associated with more than just mud slinging and efforts to bribe bloggers. I know I have little respect for his opinion any more, which is a shame because he cast the shadow over his own reputation.
Accusations that bloggers that use PayPerPost are creating SPAM is ridiculous. SPAM in blogs is defined on Wikipedia as comments in posts that are only links to the commenter's website:
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Blog spam, or "blam" for short is spamming on weblogs. In 2003, this type of spam took advantage of the open nature of comments in the blogging software Movable Type by repeatedly placing comments to various blog posts that provided nothing more than a link to the spammer's commercial web site. [2] Similar attacks are often performed against wikis and guestbooks, both of which accept user contributions.
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Someone else coming to my blog and leaving a comment on one of my posts that tells others to visit their site is SPAM, my providing a link (paid for or not) to someone else's site within the context of my blog post is not SPAM.
I'd like to open things up to anyone reading this, though. Tell me what you think, am I spamming? Am I providing excessive information that is not relevant to my blog's content or theme? Am I hurting anyone?
I've covered this before, but just so there are no misunderstandings on what vile purpose is behind my acceptance of payment for some of the post subjects on my blogs - here's why I do it.
I am a full-time caregiver to my parents, my father is in medical need of a full-time caregiver after he suffered a massive stroke in 2001, my mother is unable to provide the care that my dad needs on her own and has uncontrolled diabetes. Being unable to work outside of the home I have no income outside of what I can earn through the computer. The money I earn goes toward my medical bills, toward trying to buy my father a powered wheel chair, and hopefully one day toward my retirement. I've been able to help pay for heating fuel to keep the house warm and look forward to being able to buy more heating fuel in the months to come. If this makes me a bad person then I would like to direct your attention to the crate of fist sized stones that I have supplied to the left, those who are without sin may feel free to cast as many as you desire at me for the sin of earning a little money while keeping my content in line with what I feel might interest those reading my blogs.
As for disclosure on posts. If you want to know what posts I've been paid for, e-mail me, I'll tell you. If it's that big of a deal then don't follow any link I offer because I hold my integrity by only posting links for those I feel are worth endorsing. Maybe Calacanis is unable to show enough self control that he would give links to sites *just* for money, but any decent blogger can make up their own mind on what to post and what not to post based on what they are willing to put their reputation on the line for. And I have faith in the intelligence of my readers, you all know if something is worth your time to look at and if you think it is then it won't matter if I was paid or not - will it?
For the interest of fairness - here are the posts I am referring to:
Post one, post two.
More of my point of view can be found in a comment I made on post two, comment #12.
Want to know more about what the fuss is over? Check out PayPerPost.com.
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