skycaps upheld…

handwheel undelivered…

conceptualized midwifery…

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IDENTIFYING A CULT
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- The cult member sees himself as “righteous” in comparison and this comes across in their attitude toward all outsiders.

- They cannot see themselves as individuals apart from the group. Some even change their name as a rejection of their former life.

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You will be surprised how many signs applies to PPP.
Here are more details of “IDENTIFYING A CULT”
http://www.ex-cult.org/General/identifying-a-cult

Ted appears to be a genuine guy. Just leave the poor guy alone. Commens such as “[Ted] is the most evil guy in this room,” only hurt your credibility.

In sum, you are a 30+ guy, perhpas it’s time to start acting like one.

I read all of these comments, and I was wondering if someone could explain to me how the business model of Pay Per Post is flawed. Advertisers create campaigns, “Posties” accept the offers, write the posts, and then get paid. What is flawed about that?

If your complaint is that writing a post that contains links or content that has been outlined and paid for is somehow damaging to the blogger’s integrity, could you please explain how that is any different than you accepting so much advertising here? You have eight flash badges, two vertical skyscrapers, three text links, and a large banner ad. Oh, and let’s not forget that GIGANTIC Ask.com Search Window. How’s your integrity doing?

I don’t know you, Mike, but I have to wonder why you feel the need to single out Pay Per Post like this. I’m sure I could do a search on Flickr and find you photos from other company retreats where there is questionable behavior going on. If I do, will you write an equally scathing post about that company’s CEO and staff? If you were truly offended by the photos, why didn’t you contact the ACLU, or any Native American Rights groups, and lodge a complaint with them?

There are no photos of you from college or any time in your life when you were doing something inappropriate, I’m sure. And I’m sure you have NEVER used any kind of racial slur, right? I’m only asking because if you are going to call someone a racist, which is a pretty serious term to use, then you need to be above reproach yourself, I think.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Postie. My blogs are not “virtually full of paid posts”, and while I’m sure I don’t make one tenth of what you do with your ADS, I’m pretty happy with my extra income. If any of your ad sponsors are interested in advertising with me, they are more than welcome to stop by.

I’ve been living in it for the past 20 years so to explain how this is racist in a single post is impossible.

To the white people who do get it, thank you.

Was this all that was done at the PPP retreat or did you just find the most embarrassing thing you could find and make a big deal out of it?

You are a sad little man.

Why would you let yourself be offended by this? Are you really that sensitive? Have a need for drama? Native Americans dressed like this and guess what… they had tan red faces!

Why can’t we all just relax and see this for what it really is: a bunch of young drunk guys having some fun (drop some pride, and I’m sure you can relate). The sooner we can all learn to laugh at these stupid stereotypes, the better.

I guess white people should be offended when a non-white dresses up like a cowboy.

Idiots. Go protest about Mumia or something.

Easy to say when your in the enviable white, rich, educated minority.

PPP is probably doing quite well, as someone hinted at. Because they’ve monetized the blogosphere they are evil? Really? @Mike, lets not drag out the “keep the internet free” bullshit ten years later and see if it still works… Those days are long gone…

But who cares really?

Better than some of the cockfest money wasters i’ve seen at 111 Minna st or hiring some dickwad consultant or web strategist.

They were having fun it looks like, and i’d be willing to bet this is the sales team, and they prob are taking a much needed vacation after selling their asses off to get the IOs for some lamer company filled.

Better than attending some shitcan convention @ $2,000 a pop, right?

Not to get all serious here but, that really is the bottom line here for those who attempt to make this a race issue: being offended is a choice. If somebody speaks words that are ignorant or intentionally malicious we all have a fork in the road as to how we will act or react. You can choose the path of rising above the words or you can feel hurt and become a victim. This concept is a central theme of one of the most moving and well written letters I’ve ever read, you can find it here: http://www.nobelprizes.com/nob.....-jail.html

Mike is killing it with techcrunch and perhaps his title was a bit dramatic, but so what, this is a technology blog, not a dictionary. This is a business and sensationalism is part of the game.

At the end of the day the payperpost model is flawed in ways that I don’t believe can be corrected, even with new management. You can learn an incredible amount about somebody by watching how they convey their thoughts in interviews; interact with others, and how they conduct themselves in business.

That being said, Ted Murphy may be a “nice” guy and at times shockingly well spoken, but if your gut feeling is that he is a bit shifty, child like, and perceptible to moral digressions (did I make that word up?) when money is involved, I think your gut feelings are correct. It is clear that the moral compass doesn’t have a dead center; it shifts as needed to suit the most financially beneficial scenario. Founders’ ethical and moral fiber are the backbone of any business culture and in the case of payperpost, this is especially true. A shifting moral compass combined with consistent clear lapses in judgment make the long term outlook for payperpost volatile and not very promising. An example of a lapse in judgment that comes to mind is allowing Calacanis to single handedly turn Ted into an instrument of amusement by “bribing” Ted to denigrate himself by allowing Calacanis to put his mark / brand on your forehead, similar to how a prisoner might mark his ##tch. I was in shock when Ted allowed himself to be manhandled like this. There are certain things you just do not do when you are captain of the ship due to the risk of being perceived as lacking judgment, common sense, and the moral fabric needed in a true leader. Perception is reality, and as such, the CEO cannot allow himself to be put in a situation, that although harmless in and of itself, may be construed or manipulated into being viewed as something less than flattering for somebody in the position of CEO. I know this is a shocking assertion……
I can only imagine what management meetings at payperpost consist of. I envision staffers wondering “Why is everybody always picking on us or attacking us?” and Ted replying with “Everybody is jealous of us, that’s all it is, they’re haters” The bottom line is that the drama will never go away because the business plan has what I would consider to be mortal flaws. It’s that simple. People don’t continuously attack payperpost because they just don’t like it; they abhor it because what payperpost is doing is wrong. They attempt to use bad logic by comparing the model to other mediums and they can justify the business all day long, but at the end of the day, nothing has changed, what they are doing is wrong.

I haven’t seen the data to back up the value payperpost delivers their advertisers and there may be strong data, but I just don’t find it plausible that this value, if it exists, will last. Only time will bear this out. What I have seen is that postie’s blogs are consistently obvious attempts to simply make some money without much unique content or providing real value for a consumer. Very amateur blogs with virtually every post being a paid advertisement is not good. No amount of rationalization or justification changes this. I can spot a “Postie” blog a mile away and so can others. One only has to spend a few minutes reading the payperpost forums to get a sense of what type of blogger payperpost attracts. Just because somebody will pay for the service, doesn’t mean it should exist. Mike could make significant money by placing paid posts on his blog, but the end result would be instant loss of credibility (regardless of how you feel regarding his dealings with companies and who he chooses to write about….being that he is human, I would expect him to prefer some companies based on how they approach him, their tact, and whether he has a personal interest in the types of products or services they deliver). The continuing theme with payperpost is lowest common denominator.

In summary, I believe that a combination of deteriorating investor confidence, search engine based penalties, and the realization that the value provided to advertisers is limited in scope and to the type of audience reached by postie blogs will result in payperpost becoming paypertoast (thanks to whomever coined this phrase). Perhaps they continue their growth and I’m wrong on all counts, whatever the outcome, they’re one underdog I am NOT rooting for. Thankfully they are one of the few examples of businesses you love to hate where you can simply give enough rope and count on them to do the rest.

Judging by your post, i think the reason you’re routinely called “whitey/ cracker/honkey..” blah blah has more to do with your personality than your race. I mean, come on! you can’t even write 5 lines without 7 expletives! Might i suggest you take some home schooling in english from Ms. South Carolina? You might learn some additional words from her extensive vocabulary. Would help you in insulting people in a more capable manner.

My CAPTCHA is NOT working. Please take care of your posties too. We are the ones to stand by you whenever Mike Arrington throws trash…