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November 10, 2007

PayPerPost’s Latest Gimmick - SocialSpark

Michael Arrington

59 comments »

PayPerpost, which has renamed it’s parent company IZEA, says they’ll be launching a new social network in January 2008 called SocialSpark.

Bloggers and advertisers (the company says they have over 85,000 bloggers and 11,000 advertisers) will create profiles. Users visiting the site will then “browse the public profiles of advertisers and bloggers along with their associated sponsorship and blog related data.”

”It’s the first social network that is designed from the ground up to be advertiser-centric, while preserving the free, managed flow of user information common within other networks” said CEO Ted Murphy.

The translation, as far as I can tell, is that SocialSpark is a place for advertisers to interact with bloggers who are willing to take pay per post type advertising and run with it. Get to know them, see how big their audience is, whatever. There’s absolutely nothing distasteful about it as an idea. But to the extent it furthers the pollution of the blogosphere by encouraging more paid shilling, it makes us all worse off.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 10th, 2007 at 7:09 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. ZiZi

    November 10th, 2007 at 7:12 pm

    I think i will use their services, I know you dont like it and i do agree with you on some point, however, i would only use it using their option for bloggers to review it as a neutral party and not paid pumping.
    is that wrong?

  2. Michael Arrington

    November 10th, 2007 at 7:17 pm

    Zizi - no, there are legitimate reasons for bloggers to work for PPP. Writing paid posts isn’t something I would do, but with proper disclosure it certainly doesn’t cross the line (in my opinion). It’s the edge cases that create the train wrecks.

  3. Steve Jobs

    November 10th, 2007 at 7:24 pm

    It’s cute how you guys “crap” all over PayPerPost, yet give them massive amounts of press.

    I guess their PR rep is pretty smart: “Hey, TC, do this…make it sound like you hate us, but since we’re paying you mad $$, keep putting stuff up about us…yeah, everyone’s soooo stoopid our little ‘good cop/bad cop’ routine will work like magic! Muahhaahaaaha!”

    oh boy…

  4. David Mackey

    November 10th, 2007 at 7:25 pm

    Hmmm…I like the idea actually.

  5. faceloop

    November 10th, 2007 at 7:30 pm

    These guys seem to be running there resources pretty thin. It is tough enough to launch and grow one startup - these guys are doing like 5+.

    They either have a 5 minute attention span -or- they are in trouble and grasping at straws.

  6. Will

    November 10th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    “Writing paid posts isn’t something I would do, but with proper disclosure it certainly doesn’t cross the line (in my opinion). ”

    Michael, you don’t get paid for covering all these tech startups? I always assumed you did (sincerely).

  7. www.carversation.com

    November 10th, 2007 at 8:03 pm

    social sites are becoming over done now. move onto something new.

  8. JAV

    November 10th, 2007 at 8:09 pm

    SocialSpark has mandatory In-Post disclosure. Plus they introduced something called a Blog Sponsorship, which is a display ad unit. This is another way for bloggers to monetize their sites. This should be exciting.

  9. i'm Ronald Lewis

    November 10th, 2007 at 8:40 pm

    I’ll be damned if I ever have to pay somebody to write about me. I prefer to get written about the old fashioned way - because I’m news-worthy.

    PPP…”f’n bitch”

  10. The Foo

    November 10th, 2007 at 8:47 pm

    “….is a place for advertisers to interact with bloggers who are willing to take pay per post type advertising and run with it. ”

    so as an advertiser, you create a profile, mingle with would be bloggers that may end up advertising for you or writing about your service/product.

    i see the idea BUT i don’t get it what is in it for them (i.e. IZEA)…

    what will stop an advertiser from bypassing Payperpost (and paying PPP commissions). with this social site, i can save on having to pay the commissions by going directly to the blogger, right? On top of all that, I get the chance to choose the blogger that I want rather than putting it on the PPP criteria driven marketplace.

    Maybe we are only getting a generalistic view of what it can do and there is more to it then this post reports. However, based on what i just read someone tell me otherwise — Aren’t they shooting themselves in the foot by launching this? isn’t it potentially going to take business away from PPP?

  11. Chris

    November 10th, 2007 at 8:48 pm

    yeah they suck but come off it already…

  12. Fresh Blogger Templates

    November 10th, 2007 at 9:13 pm

    This isn’t really that bad of an idea. I don’t necessarily like the idea of paid blog posts but at the same time, I don’t think there is anything wrong with SocialSpark. Even if it is a community for advertisers to get a feel for their demographic, I don’t feel it is really all that bad.

  13. Stephen Levinson

    November 10th, 2007 at 9:16 pm

    What a silly idea. People who use that service must be the sorriest fools ever.

    Mike, why give these internet slimeballs press??? Why do you write about them? Why don’t you spend your time writing about something actually worthy?

    Write about them when you put them on deathwatch.

  14. Steve Ballmer

    November 10th, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    Who in their right mind is gonna fall for something as stupid as this!??

    oops
    I forgot where I was, sorry.

    http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

  15. graywolf

    November 10th, 2007 at 10:02 pm

    Yep better put a stop to all those sponsored posts what we really need are more bloggers using adsense to make a living because that doesn’t pollute the web. Maybe we should all put IT Room sponsored videos in our feeds because that clearly is less polluting than sponsored posts

  16. Dan

    November 10th, 2007 at 10:26 pm

    Hi Mike… I’m serious when I say this. I would MUCH rather read your unbiased take on an outfit that is paying you to review them than see that damned “THe IT ROOM” humongous banner ad in your RSS feed, every single feed!! Yikes!

    And it would pay better for you, too. Think about it… 1) You don’t annoy your readers with such a gawd-awful annoying ad, 2) You get more duckets, 3) The advertiser gets access to a wider audience than he/she could possibly hope for when they absolutely need it (their launch…etc.)

    Relying on organic coverage just doesn’t work any more for start ups, in general. Not unless you have some “in” at outfits like yours…. networked…etc. I have many online services that I just can’t get coverage for, that are really cool and people would love to know about. But I could afford to drop $5K your way to get it done without having to fiddle with press releases and crap like that.

    2 cents!

  17. techguy

    November 10th, 2007 at 10:26 pm

    Mike,
    Interesting choice of what to cover. I’m surprised you didn’t cover the SocialSpark blog sponsorship or their new blog ranking algorithm or their plans to integrate with open social or their free spark posts or etc etc etc.

    I would have expected much more from you on this coverage. Although if someone called me a golden donkey I probably wouldn’t want to look at them much either.

  18. DGM

    November 10th, 2007 at 10:28 pm

    otima postagem

    De Graça é Mais Gostoso

  19. EH

    November 10th, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    I’m thinking “will create profiles” is the big question. It’s inevitable that people are going to get sick of creating new profiles just to get access to some company’s graph. Companies sure don’t mind asking them to, though. I imagine this will continue for some time.

  20. VC Dan

    November 11th, 2007 at 1:18 am

    Thanks for coverage Mike. On the heels of your Social Ads coverage, this is pretty timely/big — with the industry’s first face-based analytics, social media ROI reporting and uniform in-post disclosure. Given your prior experimentation with analytics, TC is a natural for the private alpha. You and your readers can ping Ted or SocialSpark.com if curious about the future of online analytics/advertising. Again, thanks for the coverage!

  21. ml

    November 11th, 2007 at 1:20 am

    I cannot see how any advertisers would want to waste their time on a social network, we are already paying bloggers to write specific messages, why a further need of discussion? No thanks.

    PPP is only good for links relating to SEO (Teds an SEO guy: Mindcomet) and this was created as a way to help his main business.

    The linking value is temporary as Google and others will eventually devalue these blogs and therefore taking away the main reason PPP exists. It does have legitimate value to push directly to bloggers themselves though so it will not be going away anytime soon.

    Most advertisers I know would rather distance themselves from PPP even though they use the product now.

  22. h johnson

    November 11th, 2007 at 4:27 am

    Im with ron #9

  23. 42mb.com

    November 11th, 2007 at 5:50 am

    It seems nice idea to have a platform for both advertisers and bloggers to interact, bloggers will have more opportunity to explore their ability in broader sense.

  24. Matt

    November 11th, 2007 at 6:12 am

    when somebody is terrified of a thing in business, there is a market.

  25. David Berkowitz

    November 11th, 2007 at 6:15 am

    Sorry for the irrelevance to the post, but ditto on the ITRoom ads - you need some frequency caps, even if ITRoom’s loving how everyone apparently remembers how much those ads annoy them.

  26. http://www.meetingflex.com/SearchVideo.aspx

    November 11th, 2007 at 7:39 am

    Everybody is launching a Social Network.

    It is time to consolidate now..

    :-)

    Blazing speed video search
    http://www.meetingflex.com/SearchVideo.aspx

  27. Tom

    November 11th, 2007 at 8:11 am

    Sorry to go against the grain here but Iv never understood your hatred for PPP.

    How is a blogger getting paid to write something any different to what Om malik, techcrunch etc do ? To get on techcrunch you need to be a friend or know somebody. Then techcrunch sticks shed loads of ads all over its site.

    End of the day their is no difference between getting paid to review something in an honest way to reviewing a site that advertises with your or a startup passed to you thru a known contact.

    TC shut the hell up and deal with your attitude

  28. nick of cebu

    November 11th, 2007 at 8:30 am

    Yer damn right, every inch of traction for PPP makes us all worse off. Mike, can you please stop giving these pimps free PR?

  29. Alan Wilensky

    November 11th, 2007 at 9:38 am

    “…..preserving the *free*, *managed* flow of user information…”

    Free - Managed….Free…Managed

    Ok, got it!

  30. Yelp Sucks

    November 11th, 2007 at 9:44 am

    problem with ppp in the past was that bloggers did not have to disclose they were being paid. that was a problem I think Mike had with them.

    ppp fixed that by requiring that the blogger either say they it’s a ppp post or disclose on their home page that they are a ppp blogger.

  31. Loretta

    November 11th, 2007 at 10:59 am

    At least PPP and crew remembered to show up for BlogWorldExpo this week. And they got involved with bloggers, met people, shook hands, and asked for feedback. *gasp* they actually cared what real people thought about what they brought to the table. Wow, what an amazing concept that is … you might try it some time.

  32. ZiZi

    November 11th, 2007 at 11:15 am

    i would and will use PPP once my site is ready to launch BUT i will require 2 important things from bloggers

    1- be 100% neutral, i want you opinion even if its negetive.
    2- you MUST state in the blog that:
    A- I paid for a neutral review.
    B- I requested that you state it in your blog.

    is that still wrong?

  33. Mike

    November 11th, 2007 at 1:25 pm

    I agree it’s time for TechCrunch to shut up about PayPerPot. Mashable.com is way better then TechCrunch these days…TechCrunch needs to really get it’s stuff together I’m tired of the boring post here and the monthly bitch fest against PayPerPost. Every time you post something about PPP you just give them more traffic and more bloggers sign up.

  34. Yelp Sucks

    November 11th, 2007 at 3:01 pm

    frankly yelp is much worst than ppt. there is no disclosure from the shills on that site that they work for the company. at least on ppt there is some disclosure, on yelp there is pure deceit.

  35. Karen

    November 11th, 2007 at 6:43 pm

    You don’t write paid posts??? My eyes must be deceiving me. Darn these trifocals.

  36. ice

    November 11th, 2007 at 7:03 pm

    I have a blog that gets ok traffic 100k+, but I would like to add some other advertising other than adsense ads. Not nessecerily in post, but more like blog sponsors, exactly like how tech crunch does it. The problem is it’s hard to orchestrate that contact between me and advertisers. Does this new featured from PPP help that.

  37. david hyman

    November 11th, 2007 at 8:00 pm

    almost everything one reads in the newspapers is paid for via p.r. firms. so, perhaps this cuts out the middleman?

  38. anon

    November 11th, 2007 at 8:58 pm

    It would be wonderful to know if this hatred you have for them is really real.
    There is information to be shared, but fear of repercussions is huge.

  39. Seovice

    November 12th, 2007 at 3:10 am

    IZEA’s on the right track, now it’s a question of will the online community embrace their platform? Read my post about it on http://www.seovice.ning.com

  40. Martin

    November 12th, 2007 at 3:58 am

    i would and will use PPP once my site is ready to launch BUT i will require 2 important things from bloggers

    1- be 100% neutral, i want you opinion even if its negative.
    2- you MUST state in the blog that:
    A- I paid for a neutral review.
    B- I requested that you state it in your blog.

    is that still wrong?

    I have seen advertisers ask for essentially these criteria through PPP, although the ‘neutral’ tone category in PPP is perceived by most bloggers to include constructive criticism but not truly negative commentary.

  41. Lori

    November 12th, 2007 at 10:19 am

    I’m looking forward to it. Really, I wish you would just quit trying to find the negative all the time. I mean come on, there are MUCH more important things to worry about in life than crapping all over paid to blog companies.

  42. Money Blurbs

    November 12th, 2007 at 8:52 pm

    Social Spark is much better than its predecessor. It has in post disclosure, no-follow links (if advertiser requires it), banner ads etc. Its a well thought out system and I am sure will please all the advertisers and search engines as well.

  43. Jay Adair

    November 13th, 2007 at 5:58 am

    They seem to have made their $10m investment last very well. I really enjoy their video podcast. Good luck to them.

  44. Judy Andrews

    November 13th, 2007 at 10:09 pm

    I think people have a right to earn an extra income by doing paid posting. What does it really pollute? People can always click away as they have always done unless it’s of interest to them. If it’s just an out an out ad fest from start to finish then I would agree, no one likes all potatoes and no meat unless your a vegetarian.

  45. Sandy

    November 15th, 2007 at 5:45 pm

    I never heard of this pay per post concept. I think I’ll try it.

  46. Jamaipanese

    November 16th, 2007 at 5:08 am

    as long as the advertising is disclosed I see no problem with this

  47. James Westfall

    November 24th, 2007 at 12:53 am

    This is what Pay-Per-Post should have been in its first iteration. There’s nothing truly novel, special, or “ground-breaking” in SocialSpark. All of these new features should’ve made v1. They do get a point for a neat web 2.0-ey name, though.

  48. peter

    November 25th, 2007 at 11:46 am

    can I get paid to vote?

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