I apologize for having been away for so long. My previous job ate up a lot of non-work related blogging time. Anyway, I'm back and I hope you're still with me.
I was reading a good article today and wanted to give my opinion and maybe get some feed back. I am totally open to advertising on blogs (as long as they're obviously advertising) and to a sponsor, as long as that's disclosed.
There seems to be some disagreement about this in the blogosphere. Pat Phelan, who writes a technology blog, calls out one Sarah Austin. According to Sarah, she is "one of the first live streaming, life-casters popularized on Justin.TV and now hosts a weekly live show in conjunction with Pop17 at Mogulus." Also in her about page, she says:
Pop17 is a two-to-three minute daily exploration to track, analyze and understand the new cultural phenomenon of online micro-celebrity.
On this blog, I guess she has sponsors that she does not disclose. For the details of this, read Pat's blog entry. I won't repeat them here. Sarah has her say on her blog. Personally, it seems like the whole thing just helps here in her micro-celebrity and may be a joint marketing thing between the two of them. Conflict drives page hits (which is a completely different aspect of ethics). I don't know either player so I can't say.
It does bring to light a very interesting point about ethics. As in, what are the ethics of blogging? Are blogger journalists? Are bloggers self-obsessed celebrity seekers? Something in between? I think that has to be answered before we can talk about ethics.
I think a lot of it has to do with how you present yourself and what you blog about. If you are presenting a professional appearance, and you blog as if you were a journalist, which seems to be how the blog in question operates, then I think the ethics of disclosure is obvious. The ethics of the situation are even cleared when someone is comparing a sponsor's products to those of its competitors. That's OK to do, but it must be disclosed (IMHO).
Disclosure is required for long term credibility. If something just does not look or feel honest, people will pick up on it and dishonesty will destroy long term success for a blogger.
What do you think?
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