PayPerPost Acquires Zookoda

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1. Kewtr
   

   April 23rd, 2007 at 1:13 pm

   Sounds like a decent match.

   I am rooting for PayPerPost just because I get annoyed that it’s controversial at all. Only a weak writer would write something they don’t believe for money, so I highly doubt PayPerPost actually causes anything that isn’t already the case. Good writers are still good, even if they happen to go ahead and take money to write something they believe anyway.

2. Hornswaggled
   

   April 23rd, 2007 at 1:15 pm

   You almost got away with writing about PPP without linking to them directly, see the PPP image. For a service that you dont really like the link love to them is doing nothing but helping their cause.

   I was curious if you knew much about how Google and Matt Cutts are gearing towards the PPP virus. I know he posted a long blog post about the subject but curious if you had any insight.

3. Hornswaggled
   

   April 23rd, 2007 at 1:18 pm

   Kewtr: I dont have a problem with them either if thats all they did. However they encourage slanted reviews. Paying for a postive review is nothing new but there should be some clear disclaimer and not one that is buried within a disclaimer page somewhere deep on the site.

   To stay on track, this does make sense for them and would add value to them as a solid advertising network.

4. Bob
   

   April 23rd, 2007 at 1:38 pm

   Hornswaggled, you just don’t get it do you? I love how people pass judgment on this company without doing ANY research.

   Check it out:
   http://blog.payperpost.com/200.....close.html

5. Wil Schroter
   

   April 23rd, 2007 at 1:41 pm

   Can someone mention whether the pruchase price was more or less than $1m?

6. Ali
   

   April 23rd, 2007 at 1:42 pm

   So that’s one of the big announcements, they have some more announcements coming up in the next couple of weeks as well.

7. Trace Richardson
   

   April 23rd, 2007 at 1:56 pm

   I nearly vomit in my mouth when I hear the name Ted Murphy. In a perfect world, google would step in, crush PPP, and the last rockstartup episode would be of Ted Murphy admitting that when Jason Calacanis paid him $1000 to write calacanis cast on his forehead he really kept the money to buy new “duds” instead of donating it to the woman that he promised had promised to.

8. Jay (living in First Life)
   

   April 23rd, 2007 at 2:01 pm

   @ 5 - if $500,000 was too much and it was on the market for that long, I would guess the price is in the $250,000 - $400,000 price range. It is not higher than the asking price, that’s for sure.

   @ 6 - What are big announcements for PayPerPost? Scoble is already on board. Who cares honestly?

   There are a couple of problems that go beyond whether or not PPP is controversial.

   1. Blogs are not that widely used - yes there are a lot of blogs but that doesn’t mean anyone is reading them. When you move beyond TechCrunch, Perez Hilton, Gawker, etc., most blogs have very few readers. There are not 10,000 worthwhile blogs out there in the world. Most of the blogs they have signed up have 10 readers and are totally crappy blogs.

   2. Unsustainable promotions - PPP does a lot of “Thousand dollar Tuesdays” and similar high payout promotions that are significantly negative gross margin. Their reality show is a bomb. Ted Murphy can’t seriously believe some TV network wants to broadcast it. If we want to what a start-up implode, I’d rather watch Justin.tv fall apart for free.

   3. Difficulty in retaining advertisers - this is cool to try out but if you log-in, you’ll see even the top earners don’t earn much and there aren’t many available offers. Advertisers will find it very hard to make the long-tail effect work here because there’s no reason to believe that if you can get Google text ads on the site for $2.50/CPM (assuming 0.5% CTR @ $0.50/click), that the value of that blogger writing an article about you is worth $20/CPM.

   4. Difficulty in delivering real value - there are some blogs where monetizing makes sense. If you write about gadgets, it’s easy to say “Oh check out this new smartphone.” If it’s a blog about some mom writing about changing her kid’s diapers, it’s not really relevant to throw in something about an HP Camera (one of PPP’s “opportunities”). It’s fake and it won’t drive results for the advertiser.

9. Amit Chowdhry
   

   April 23rd, 2007 at 2:03 pm

   Wil (Comment #5), I’m guessing that PPP spent >$1 million considering that between all the funding that they had received was roughly $3 million:
   http://blog.payperpost.com/200.....nture.html

   I could be wrong, but why should they spend 1/3rd of their funding on an acquisition? Every acquisition has risk and synergy isn’t always guaranteed.

   As far as revenue is considered. According to TalkCrunch, Ted Murphy mentioned that they made “well over $100,000″ in 2006:
   http://www.talkcrunch.com/2006.....3-million/

   The ratio between the amount of money coming in compared to Zookonda’s asking price, 1-1.5:5 seems like that they shouldn’t be giving more than they are asking for.

   This is just my guess based on researching some of the data, I could be waayyyy off too.

10. suni
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    Google is talking about launching their own campaign similar to what PPP is already doing, so don’t start the vomit fest too quickly.

    http://services.google.com/payperaction/

11. Amit Chowdhry
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    Mike, can you approve my last comment awaiting moderation? I think its because I have more than a couple URLs in it.

12. dave
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:06 pm

    Can PayPerPost ever be mentioned on TechCrunch without pejoratives applied to it?

13. Bob
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:08 pm

    Trace: Big words coming from a mortgage lender. You all are the scum of the earth.

14. Tears
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    Do I sound angry?
    Does it sound like a slam?
    Did Oppapalooza cost them their shirts?
    So they’re now sending spam?

15. Josiah
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:22 pm

    The ignorance by Arington and the commentors here about PPP here is amazing.

    Hornswaggled: Google and Mat Cutts aren’t gunning for PPP, that’s simply how you translated his postings and I would hope there’s people at Google smarter than Matt and you to realize that this isn’t going away and isn’t a virus. Google will have a very hard time cutting down on PPP or any of the 7-8 competitors in this market place because #1 it’s incredibly hard to track and report which leads to #2 that fact that it’s REAL content and shouldn’t be excluded from the index. Do you think Wired.com runs articles out of the goodness of their heart? Are you so ignorant to believe that large corporation don’t influence media by “buying” placement and articles?

    If Google filters out PPP blogs then they should do the same for any of the large established media companies (except with them they don’t disclose and typically hide the fact that they are being influenced and paid by the subjects of their “un biased” articles.) Which is better? A blogger who writes in every post that it’s sponsored or a website which reviews a product but fails to tell you they got invited to a special PR party and got free samples?

    Bob: Thank you.

    Trace Richardson: Wow, these comments coming from someone who runs a very scammy looking Mortgage site. You are actually the type of website owner that I AVOID when doing PPP posts.

    And finally Jay (the most misguided)

    1. I don’t even think I need to comment on “blogs are not that widely used”. PPP required a certain level of content, and yes most blogs don’t even come close to the readership TC has but THAT’s THE FARKIN POINT. Blogs like TC have no problem making money hand over fist, small blogs need help and Google ads don’t deliver. 10 readers is a little weak, my PPP blog is seeing over 15K unique visits a month and I consider it my “half assed project” which I hardly spend time on (and it isn’t crappy)

    2. PPP does run high dollar promotions but that’s mostly for PR, the real meat is the $5-$10 range, but you would know that if you actually spent 5 minutes doing a little research.

    3. Top earners aren’t earning much? Sure it’s not a career but the top blogger has earned over 10K in a matter of months, and I personally have made over 1K with only 1 blog and only a couple of months. Not the kind of money that will allow me to retire but it sure helps pay the mortgage(s).

    4. Regarding the “real value” aspect, a stay at home mom blogging about a new HP Camera is more valuable to me than some uber geek writing a paid review that he doesn’t give a crap about. What do you think that mom uses to take photos of her kids? Who do you think would write a more honest and thorough review, a Mom or some uber geek running a gadget blog? I’d pick the Mom any day. Also, the posts are not about the value of direct traffic, it’s all search engine related and the real value comes from links into your site.

    Do just a little research next time guys.

16. suni
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:24 pm

    Trace: the woman confirmed that she got the money so that is not going to happen.

17. Hornswaggled
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:25 pm

    Bob: Wow you are really keeping things professional here. You obviously have some sort of interest here. You tend to loose credibility when you start name calling bro.

    As an advertiser that has used PPP I can say that from the beginning PPP was meant for Ted to create a platform for delivering links for his Mindcomet clients, this could of course also be leveraged to the industry as a hole and they were not even the first, Blogitive was before them doing the same thing though that was/is a closed network last I checked.

    PPP allows advertisers to CHOOSE how the review goes, positive, negative and neutral. This is the main complaint. They received pressure from the FTC to force bloggers to disclose, then created disclosurepolicy.org and encouraged site wide disclosure (not on individual posts). They are pushing for disclosure on the blog you linked to because of the FTC and they are not forcing it on the bloggers. If they wanted disclosure on all posts it would be done instantly, they will only do as much as they have to.

18. Josiah
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm

    Hornswaggled: I know from personal experience that if you don’t disclose directly in your post the PPP staff will decline it (even if you have a full disclosure page as well). Also, the positive/negative/neutral hints are mostly ignored, and in fact play only a small role on how the posts are crafted.

19. Hornswaggled
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:37 pm

    Josiah: this must be new, a few months ago this wasn’t the case. Thats a good step then.

    People get their panties all in a bunch if you criticize PPP in any way just because they are making a few bucks from it. I’m probably paying some of you guys as I have spent 20k+ on posts their, have talked with Ted personally when he asked me to help him raise some funds in the beginning. I think its a good service with a few flaws, I guess that makes me an ahole to Bob and you.

    Oh well, I’m not loosing any sleep over this. Glad TC posted some more to get this thing buried.

20. Robyn
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:39 pm

    Yep—I totally got it and showed some lovin’ to Ted “PPP Style”!! He’s a great guy–it’s a great company–and I love that all the haters seem to think we have to write dishonest posts! We can write positive, neutral or negative–it’s up to us!! Oh, and just in case you wanted to read about my Ted Lovin’–here’s the link!!! http://www.genkidesuyo.com/?p=27 As usual–to those offended by seeing me pimp my kids out—they are pictured–BEWARE!!! Love Ya Ted!!!

21. Josiah
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    Hornswaggled: I’m confused, you bought 20K worth of advertising from PPP yet you want to see it buried and have major issues with the service? Was this before or after your experience as an advertiser and has your ROI influenced this opinion?

    I do make money from PPP, and being a “postie” I am quick to defend the model, but not because of the income it generates (that can easily be replaced). I defend the model because #1 PPP is bringing transparency to the blog advertising world and allowing small bloggers to make a profit on their blogs (although you can say they were ‘forced’ into disclusre I think they would have ended up there anyways) and #2 established bloggers who have fought to make money are the first ones to kick PPP in the stomach because they are generally pissed that small bloggers now have a way of competing with them and actually making a decent buck (somethine they had to kick and scrap for with Google Ad Words for years).

    I generally get pissed because guys like Arington and Jason who are established and make good money are the first ones to pounce on PPP and declare it a virus all the while they benefit from the back handed world of PR and advertising with their own blogs or blog networks. Not only do they blog about companies giving the impression of a non-bias but they also accept advertising from the same companies. Seems a little shady to me, a lot less shady than some soccer mom (or Dad in my case) making a little extra money writing reviews.

22. ted
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:56 pm

    PPP is evil, no doubt about that. However, they’re evil like Mini-Me is evil, not Dr. Evil level, not even knee-high to real evil.

    The reason is that the whole thing is a joke and is doomed to fail when the seed money runs out. No serious advertiser would use the service, and no serious blogger would be a part of it. End of story.

    For the last time, if you don’t require your bloggers to say upfront that their post is sponsored, you are evil. The disclosure policy is a joke.

23. Josiah
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 2:57 pm

    As far as Google is concerned, does it benefit the Google index to include a $5 paid blog posting about a certain product or service? Maybe, maybe not, depends on the blogger and how good and informative the post/content is. But Google has ALWAYS had that problem with regular websites and non PPP blogs, so it’s really not a *new* problem. Google should index the web and help people find information, if that information is included in a sponsored post then so be it, but it shouldn’t simply be dropped because the author was paid (directly or indirectly)

24. Jessica
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 3:05 pm

    “You almost got away with writing about PPP without linking to them directly, see the PPP image. For a service that you dont really like the link love to them is doing nothing but helping their cause.”

    So Mike should cater his posts around Googles algo? Do you do this on your sites?

    Blog as if search engines don’t exist I say.

25. CVOS
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 3:11 pm

    Many small time bloggers, stay at home moms and “evening bloggers” are making a little extra money from their blogs. Disclosure is clearly marked and there are plenty of advertisers.

    Whats not to like?

26. Hornswaggled
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 3:39 pm

    Josiah: I never said i had major issues with the service. I think there are issues, so what. I cant comment on the issues as I see them?

    Jessica: I agree with you on blogging as if search engines don’t exist. That was Google’s stance and then they implemented the nofollow tag. Now they want us to add that tag for them thereby acknowledging the need to create a site based on their terms. A little bit hypocritical… on no I am criticizing Google, I guess I cant use their service now.

    C’mon people.

    This discussion has nothing to do with this news. Any of the PPP lovers have any input on this?

27. Will
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 3:48 pm

    Man some people have really gotten their panties in a WAD about this.

    There’s no real need for it.

28. VC Dan
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 4:49 pm

    I’ll try an on-topic comment, using a couple TC quotes about http://www.Zookoda.com instead of my own.

    “It’s important that bloggers offer an email option for readers - some people like to receive content this way.”

    “For bloggers looking for a more robust, customizable solution, or who want more detailed reporting, Zookoda is a very user friendly product that will work extremely well.”

    Nice coverage Michael, then and now!

29. Peter Cooper
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 5:03 pm

    The one thing about PayPerPost that rocks though is.. their documentary. Seriously, I can’t find any other videos about Web 2.0 that match the fun and production values of PPP’s RockStartup.com videos. Okay, they’re not the most informative in the world (unlike Scoble’s), but they’re mostly real fun to watch.

    Of course, I imagine in a few months they’ll release an episode about the Zookoda deal, much as they did an episode about the Performancing fall-through..

30. azrin
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 6:12 pm

    Guys…enough of the mud slinging will ya!
    PPP, yes, kinda bit of evil…but not as evil as me and my Tags which got me a top league ‘WORST BLOGGER OF ALL TIME’ (before Perez Hilton came by).

    Basicly, PPP is just another business, like Commission Junction,TradeDoubler, Adbrite (and it’s annoying Inline Ads), Google….which rely on advertising revenue. They are merely an agency to promote the services of an advertiser or vendor, thru word of mouth, unlike the rest which are contextual and / or graphically.

    Disclosure is just IMO, a piece of notice that we are ‘corrupted’,bloggers, webmasters etc, by advertising. Heck, I would say 98.4% of the WWW are somewhat sponsored. Do you really need us to be wearing T-Shirts “NASCAR Style , with badges saying …hey I took Viagra or….ENRON- We take your money and run’” (I’m just merely quoting from Robbin Williams MAN OF THE YEAR movie)

    We all know everyone is sponsored somewhere. Just that we want to know who sponsored us is the bitter pill FTC etc are trying to get us to swallow. And for the past 14 years the WWW have survived,disclosure is just another name to get us to list our sponsors.

    Don’t get me wrong. I have been earning great on PPP.Paid for my holidays and stuff like that. But not to rely totally on it as a source of income. I got a paid job too. And likewise, I slam advertisers if I find out that their product after doing a total full review is a piece of deception. Which is why alot of them loved me,for they loved gossips, meaning more traffic. Human nature is by way a funny creature, the more we say no, the more we do it, or wanna check out on it!

    I wouldn’t be surprised if WAL-MART / ASDA or even TESCO will try to take over PPP instead as they have been buying almost everything.

    My 2c, just don’t quote me!

31. GamesGadgets
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 7:26 pm

    good for Zookoda…

32. Jay (living in First Life)
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 8:27 pm

    @ Josiah

    1. 15 K uniques buddy? Let’s see a link. Most people vastly overestimate their own traffic. Most PPP bloggers have far lower traffic than you do.

    2. I know most things are very low price amounts. I signed up for an account and tried the whole thing out. How else would I know about the promotional offers? You seem to have logic issues.

    3. You are in the top 1% of earners. Most bloggers will get irritated that it pays them a measly $200 a year. That’s not even worth the time investment.

    4. I’m going to trust a mom who makes her kids smash cameras to promote HP? Have you seen that video. It’s disgusting. Children being used as shills. That’s really trustworthy.

    Grow a brain before you post on here.

33. ted
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 8:36 pm

    I think it’s clear based on the intelligence level of the PPP defenders what level their bloggers operate on.

    What legit company would pay IDIOTS to write dumb and not insightful things about them?

34. Anthony Feint
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 10:28 pm

    Obviously people dont get that PayPerPost is about ADVERTISING! It doesnt matter if its positive, negative or neutral. The fact is PPP is selling advertising on blogs and through disclosure everbody knows they are ads.

    Its the same as if I were to pay $10,000 to be a sponsor of Techcrunch. I would get an ad on this site as well as being mentioned in the “commercial break” posts this blog does. There is NO difference.

    Just because Arrington (sorry Arrogant) doesnt like PPP doesnt mean you all have to be sheep and do the same.

35. Leigh
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 11:00 pm

    ted - we all know just how much intelligence it takes to call people names, too.

36. Hornswaggled
    

    April 23rd, 2007 at 11:37 pm

    Anthony your correct that PPP is all about advertising catering specifically to text links. There are a lot of blogs in the network that are complete crap and sole purpose is PPP revenue. It matters if its positive, negative or neutral because the blogger is writing about it. Typically the blogosphere was an honest place, now thats not the case and why so many are upset (Jealousy by A-List bloggers as some have mentioned is absurd). This blog marketing would of happened eventually anyways, like I said earlier PPP was not even the first to implement this, they just did it the best.

    Reviewme has taken over for my choice for blog advertising, you know what your getting with that service. PPP still has its place but is more of a crap shoot. Maybe with this acquisition PPP can offer more services to the advertisers to keep guys like me coming back.

    From an advertiser perspective there is still a need for improvement in this area by all, hopefully growth and acquisitions like this will foster this improvement.

37. Anthony Feint
    

    April 24th, 2007 at 5:15 am

    Hornswaggled, you don’t like PPP but you like ReviewMe? They are both doing essentially the same thing! Do think Techcrunch will write something negative about its sponsors in its “commercial break” posts. Of course they won’t

    As I said before. Stop being a sheep. Start forming your own opinions and you may even find your blog improves as well.

38. Stephen
    

    April 24th, 2007 at 8:06 am

    I hope PPP assigns people to fix the bugs in Zookoda’s service, and give some technical support to users. Zookoda hasn’t answered any e-mail or support requests in months. The service basically works, but is chock full of weird bugs and behaviors.

    PPP had a PayPal issue that I continually complained about, but that was never fixed, as far as I know, so my hopes are not high.

39. ted
    

    April 24th, 2007 at 1:12 pm

    Wow, how thick can PPP defeders be? If it doesn’t say it’s an ad, it’s deceptive. Plain and Simple. The disclosure policy is not the same thing as clearly identifying what is shill content and what isn’t.

    Why is that so hard for you people to understand?

40. dewknight
    

    April 24th, 2007 at 5:00 pm

    Ted: So a commercial on TV is deceptive because it doesn’t say it’s an ad? Most of the time there is nothing between the commercials and the actual program that says which is the ad and which is the show. But that’s not deceptive?

41. colbert
    

    April 25th, 2007 at 3:59 pm

    i just hope PPP had a good deal on this thing. We don’t want them to shut down early due to bad acquisitions.

42. alan jones
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 5:41 am

    yay, congrats zookoda, good exit. i hope PPP does the right thing by the zookoda platform because it works really well for me and i’d like it to stay that way.

43. pannerbuck
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 5:54 pm

    hey ted, are you making any money on this ppp?
    how much are you making for techcrucnch?
    i just signed up today, and not really sure how this all works.

44. brettbum
    

    April 26th, 2007 at 8:58 pm

    Ad click tracking in emails. Is that a Zookoda option?????

    

45. David Mackey
    

    April 27th, 2007 at 7:35 pm

    Smart move on PPP’s part.

46. Vince Kuraitis
    

    May 4th, 2007 at 8:45 am

    I’m a real live user of Zookoda’s service for my blog. I have an email list of several thousand previous newsletter subscribers.

    1) On “paper” Zookoda is great. What they offer for free is much better than Feedblitz tries to offer for $15 per month.

    2) However, in real life, Zookoda is less than worthless. The email that my mailing list is receiving look nothing like the “preview” and “test” versions that Zookoda claims they will receive. Nobody from Zookoda tech support is home. At this rate I’m better off sending postcards to my email subscribers rather than sending them a totally illegible Zookoda broadcast email.

47. Guillaume
    

    May 6th, 2007 at 5:06 am

    Zookoda is off-line for more than 24 hours. Worth a little investigation.

    I can’t tell you how pissed I am : that’s 2500 contacts probably gone for good. There has been no warning whatsoever.

    Someone reported on the payperpost blog his website got screwed because of the missing js. Payperpost really isn’t trying to make friends.