Should IZEA Advertisements Be Accepted On TechCrunch? (Updated)

A few minutes in and it’s close: 28-24 against. Can’t wait to see how the poll turns out in the morning.

Ted has shown amazing courage given the amount of flack he has received from you and the rest of the media world. He is a marketer and knows that he can fill a void (at least is trying to) and has done nothing worse than millions of others, other than put his head above the parapet. SEO companies, traditional marketing companies, Your man Dan with his how to go viral, etc. etc. are all at it. To pick out one man and attack him so vigorously for capitalisms woes, that are essentially built into our culture, is somewhat unfair. If you want to have a rant, rant off about the politics and legal institutions that essentially allow, encourage, mandate, that we all sell our souls and play the game (all in the name of profit (and taxes)).

You should let him advertise his new services like all the other companies you allow, and I would remind you of some of the crappy (spammy) advertising I have seen on TC recently!

hey! I resemble that remark.

I checked out IZEA and it’s just a shady name change for their “Flagship Product” Pay-Per-Post.

Don’t take their $10,000.00 and become “TechCrunch, Sponsored By: Pay Per Post.”

I think that these ads should be allowed on your site. Even though I dont really like their kind of marketing as it is polluting. But so was Dan’s post few days ago and many people actually try similar kind of advertising

slow news weekend, ugh. i’ll tell you what. if these guys have money to burn? burn away brother arrington, burn away.

Deciding this via a poll of whoever fancies voting is just an invitation to IZEA to rig the results in their favour.

The decision about taking their money should be down to you, Michael, not the relative ability of IZEA and BoingBoing to mobilise their readers to vote repeatedly.

Since IZEA is clearly doomed now, I suppose it doesn’t make much difference.

Yes MA I can feel for you too. You have taken your pile of poo with the best of them from ‘the general public’ (and a fair bit from myself!).

But all that aside.. I can feel something in the air. It’s time for a change. I better get back to that application I’m building…

Even if IZEA “wins,” do you want to alienate half of your blog-stalkers? Providing the opportunity to deny an advertiser is like giving candy to the Rugrats. Do you take candy away from babies, Michael? Do you??

From their site:

“Solution sales team

If you are an agency or brand that requires a solution outside of our self service marketplace our Solution Sales Team is here to help. Our team will work with your agency or brand to craft a customized strategy that maximizes your exposure across all IZEA’s social marketing properties.

Solution sales are limited to engagements of $25,000 or greater”

They just need to land one company to make it worthwhile. Please just let them go away. Let them play in another corner of the internet, the dusty corner near the bottom.

Stop bringing them up. People come here to see what’s new and what’s next, you’re in a different league. Next time you are unsure of which direction to steer the TC Ship, ask Erick, not the internet.

Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas

Two quibbles.

1. you havent expained what type of advertisement you could be taking . is it reviewing companies/products for cash ?? or is it placing adsense like ads etc on your site but from the PPP company ?

2. Dude you need to rethink techcrunch;s posts. most of the posts iv read in the last few weeks have been non sense and not worth readin. Like you said take a holiday . there is a saying ” quality over quantity ” 1 -2 decent posts a day is better than 5 shocking worthless posts a day.

Forget about facebook, forget about PPP and all those companies you have covered atleast 3-4 times. Maybe you should have a rule that if you have covered a company more than 4 times already , you should not cover again. would certainly save alot of drivvle being written and alot of your readers complains.

Yes, but only if it’s not contra for IZEA posts praising TechCrunch.

I disagree with the sentence “In fact, I may go more negative just to prove we’re neutral, if that makes sense.” Surely then the taking of advertisements is affecting editorial coverage, even if it is in the opposite direction to what most would object to.
Taking advertisements is fine by me but don’t let if affect editorial coverage at all.

So the real dilemma here is…should I take $20k or not?

Does TechCrunch choose the ads that appear next to their content? Ads like Ads-Click, a tag-cloud monetisation system.

To be honest I think advertising influences content whether it is direct like PayPerPost or indirect like AdSense, Pronet etc. You cannot remain uninfluenced when it hits your bottom line.

Michael, you are not running a democracy here! If your vote is a no… then no it is! stand by your principles man! sounds like you want to say no, but the money element might be tempting you… so asking users, if they say yes, you will have an excuse to go ahead… its a fork in the road for you… follow the light and don’t sell out (whatever is left of not selling out anyway!). Remember… TC is your blog… well, its now a business… but it started out as your blog… your readers deserve integrity back for the loyalty they show you. If you have not got a moral issue with payperpost and really want to take their money… do it via another means… don’t pollute TC further! its your choice… you asking the question might be forgiven if you forgiven by your readers if you say you had a moment of human weakness for the money… selling out (even via just supporting) will be unforgivable! and don’t give us rubbish about you might be even more negative… its like, i’ll bang my head against the wall, but don’t worry.. i’ll have twice as many headache pills to negate the effect!

The very fact that you are running a poll suggest that deeply you want it to turn out as a yes. It’s OK to be money hungry, just don’t use the community to justify your ambiguous moral stands.

How silly. If by having the advert you’re going to be going overly negative to make up for it, whats the point? The ongoing battle you two seem to have is being used by you both now. Are we going to get a say in the inclusion of other adverts? If not, then this feud has been used to try and MAKE a news story out of something which should never have become one. Can’t wait until tomorrows post where we get to vote on Michael Arrington’s outfit.

I second mage..
everything he says makes real sense..

TC reach (at least the RSS numbers that Feedburner widget on top right of this page) is going down (from 625k to 599 last week and 595k today) and cash seems to come hard to come by as economy tightens. The new CEO and co-editor don’t come cheap either. I am not criticizing the situation, happens to every business. I just have issues with the fact that you wash dirty laundry in public and now you want to charge for it (and taking the readers for a ride at the same time).

Stop the game Michael. Take the money and use it well to further TC goals. And if possible, be honest about it.

I couldn’t be more disappointed with this post. It only shows that there’s no separation whatsoever between editorial and commercial here on TechCrunch. Of course the company should be accepted! As long as it does not deal with porn, rate, racism, etc it should be a nobrainer - in fact, the editors shouldn’t even have access to who will be advertising, that’s neutrality. The part where Michael says he will be more negative in order to prove his neutrality (!!!) is simply pathetic.
TechCrunch wrote about the Brazilian startup boo-box in the January, and all of a sudden stopped covering the company: the seed round from a VC, the launch of an innovative video monetization tool, platform portability - all made the headlines on “competing blogs” such as Mashable and Go2web2.0. Boo-box does not appear even in the CrunchBase! Than I had a look at TechCrunch sponsors and the likes of TextLink Ads. After this post, I believe it is now clear why boo-box was “banned” from TechCrunch.
Now that’s only my oppinion. If this blog comment gets censored, it will only confirm what I suspect. TechCrunch clearly has editorial/ commercial issues and needs profissionalization fast or it will quickly loose credibility with its audience.
Rodrigo, an early boo-box informal contributor in Brazil and (yet) TechCrunch reader

If you explained what is RealRank and how did it improve PayPerPost we could more easily make the desicion.

I think that if they’re willing to pay for the ad, that you should provide the service.

Mike,

I was wondering, if somebody took out a 10k/mo advert and set up a website where people could buy a rotating spot in the advert for $1000 or less, say tcshare.us or something, would you take the money and put up iframe or dynamic codes for the rotator?

Logically, you would think that a provider would want to sell more ads and take the money, but I see you are against certain things. Would you also ban advert resellers?

I have always defended ppp simply bc their business model (while profiting themselves) actually makes a few bucks for the little guys. Their blogs are smalltime and most of the people on the other end of these have little other means of making cash. as far as integrity goes, having used ppp (to understand it better) In my experience the ethical argument don’t stack up. I’ve had critical posts from their community where it was justified. Go figure, I paid for it too. To imply all their bloggers are unethical is one step too far.

MA might well need the cash (who don’t) judging by some of the quality of other ads, so go get it mike and expand expand expand. Just dont forget the little guy…

Michael, the fact that this is a poll means you don’t really care financially how this goes… that is a wonderful position to be in but this is YOUR company, as such, YOU should make the decision… not let the 100s of IP Marketers out of India affecting your polls

You are in an envious position my friend… one that many blogs would find rather hard to say no to… so the real question is, why isn’t Ted going after lesser known sites which would charge a fraction of what TC does but together represented even more traffic with greater diversity “advertising” IZEA?

Jon

Very responsible behaviour to profile advertising clients.

http://tekno-world.blogspot.com

Is Techcrunch in business to make money or not? Does IZEA promote anything as horrific as clubbing baby seals? If you answer ‘yes’ and ‘no’, then your decision is rather clear, isn’t it. Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to stifle your biased comments. How many newspapers have anti-business editorials while happily accepting dollars for ads placement?

Go for it, sir!

It’s a free country… and I don’t need Techcrunch to be my moral conscience. I don’t like what those companies do, so I ignore them, like I ignore most of the other ads.

I’d take ads from anyone. $ is $.

Poll is flawed. They posted this link on their forums. Of course all their posties re now coming here and voting in favor of the ads.
Geez Mike, by the end of 24 hours, every loyal postie they have will have voted in favor of ads because you said you’d do whatever side wins.

This is your site, you should have just made the decision. You said the first vote was no, that should have been it.

Hope you enjoy being one of Ted’s shills.

Take them marketing dollars. Take them!

Take their dollars if you feel you need the extra income (which I doubt) and you are convinced that their ads won’t cheapen your websites.

But if you’re wrong, your popularity and reputation will suffer gravely.
Fancy risking that for a couple more thousand in profits?

Only if they pay!

What kind of childish question is this? Either it’s a business decision — then you make it. Why ask your readers? Or it’s a decision based on your opinion re: PPP and the impression you believe this would make on your readership. Then it’s also your call.
Asking for a vote a) is trying to shirk responsibility and b) reminds me of children squabbling on the playground and trying to get a “gang” together just to them go “nyer-nyer-nyer-nyer” to the other kid.
Be professional about this!

Dan.

I think approach might lead to a good discussion.

What amazes me, a year and a half later and TC still cannot keep from slanting the wording used to describe PPP, (Izea). From the beginning, it’s been a war of words-a one-sided war. Now that Google has “punished” those who write paid content, or accept paid ads, Michael again has failed to mention the fact that it wasn’t just PPP users who were hit-we just happened to be a very large group, with very large voices. Some of the highest-paid A-List bloggers were hit, (John Chow to name one), who do not utilize PPP services. Blogs and other sites were hit who have never written a paid post. The “poll” is simply his way of keeping the little war going, maybe due, in part, for the lack of decent content on TC lately. Stirring the pot brings in more readers and more readers, (hopefully in his mind), brings in more revenue. The poll makes no difference, he’s made up his mind. It’s either a “no”, or greed will win over and he’ll decide to accept the offer.

You’re running a business, Michael. Accept the business proposition or don’t. We won’t think any less of you than we already do.

So a blogging pariah network justifiably gets kicked off the web, develops its own internal site ranking system for all the bloggers who use its terrible product, and now it wants to advertise the ranking system which only tracks these bloggers?

Can you explain what, exactly, made you think it would even be a good idea to ask? If the company and its core product are not only flawed, but doing a detrimental service to the blogging and journalistic worlds, a ranking system for its product isn’t going to do any good.

PayPerPost/IZEA got kicked off the web for a good reason. Don’t help it scramble its way back on.

TAKE THE MONEY

Get some balls, Arrington. This is the problem with this whole egalitarian-Web 2.0 - Silicon Valley culture. Your the boss. You also don’t rely on user-generated content as the bulk of TechCrunch’s value to readers; you actually pay people to report and break stories. If your vote is ‘no’, the policy should be no. No reader of your site has visibility into your business or knows where you want to take it. What readers think of your advertising policy is totally irrelevant.

Interesting poll. I was never a fan of payperpost but if they are doing something else now, I don’t see what the problem is. I mean, as people have been point out there are flaws with the company and it’s products, but if they are trying to come back with something, maybe give them a chance?

I think think anyone sees an advertisement as an endorsement.

I think a few weeks ago, google started penalizing blogs that have “paid links” and do participate in “pay-per-post”.

A “yes” may very well imply less traffic from google (and maybe other search engines)… I’m not sure i understand google’s decision (is it good or bad?), but i would think what is most valuable to techcruch: cash or traffic?

BTW, i voted no.

Cheers.

While I don’t think it’s entirely fair to IZEA to be subjected to a thumbs up or down from the peanut gallery (as far as I know, no other ads that appear on Techcrunch have been voted on this way…), I see this as related to the viral marketing blow up — in the absence of clearly defined principles about how to market online, Techcrunch is looking to readers to guide them on acceptable behavior.

Not optimal, but better than nothing.

Looks like you already did the deal, why poll us when it doesn’t matter? Link or not you talked about the service and now we all know about it, sounds like advertising to me.

Oh yeah, this post after Dan’s YouTube post which you still haven’t given your opinion on the other day, looks like TC is just getting bought left and right by whoever throws the most money at you. We really don’t care anymore about your “appearance” of fairness.

It sounds like you’ve already made the decision to take them, and just want your readers to say “yea fine”.

If you’re conflicted about being morally opposed, but want the money it’ll bring in, it’s more than likely that you’ve already chosen the money and just feel a quick debate will help you do that.

I share your opposition to PPP for, as you put it “polluting the blogosphere” but why the poll? Just go with your gut. My gut tells me you’ll regret it.

My blog is brand new, so I have less to lose, but I still wouldn’t use their services after slating them in previous posts. It’s amazing how quickly an opinion desolves when someone waves a dollar at you.

Let them advertise. I don’t it’s necessarily a bad idea.
As long as they disclose it somewhere. You should probably suggest them a place where they should disclose the “Paid blog” notice as a condition to get listed on your ad network.

Another point of view would be, some one could really love to write about a product or company, but we are all lazy. A bit of earning possibility can let many people put good reviews out there.

And any ways, we are living with many such silly concepts..e.g. Fine Print - invented by media. The most important notes are printed in tiny fonts no one can read.

On the other hand, if it is clearly spelled out that it is sponsored, and there are 6-figures in it annually, it seems like your users would understand. But it seems like you have clear misgivings. But don’t think you can go more “negative” on their product or business model to make you appear neutral; the fact that TechCrunch is a distribution partner is 100% validation that their model works. What more validation does a new business model need than that the business proposition is impossible to resist even by people who profess to not like the principles of the model. It seems like IZEA is a really good business, even if it’s bad product. This is the exact opposite of most Web 2.0 companies. Great product, lousy business.

Ugh. Michael, please do yourself and the rest of the blogosphere a favor and reject these guys. Their flagship product, Pay Per Post, censors bloggers. Let’s not get into bed with the devil we already know.

Doesn’t make a difference to me, I’ll just block them

You know, this post probably gives them more face time than the ads actually would. Since it came because of the potential for cash, how far is this post from being a pay-for-post entry?

Ok, we launch in one week. Our plan is to give away 1 iphone each Month, the list top 10 each month will be selected by the community. Is that considered pay for post?

We are not sure.

http://www.reviewmyplace.com

OK - so the commercial side is influenced by the editorial side (”Good for editorial!” he says showing his writerly past ) and both sides assume I read or am aware of the ads in the first place.

What ads?

If your ethics don’t like the product - you either bend your ethics or you say no.
If it’s not about ethics, what’s the problem?

I didn’t vote - it’s not my ethics involved here.

Don’t - if you don’t like them, the co.

it’s not like you need their money

Get off your almighty high horse Mike, you are not the keeper of the internet, the decider of all things worthy, the ming overlord of good content…

that said, it’s your blog, do whatever you want

ha, isn’t this funny. One of the top people slamming them all this time, and now if your “readers” say go for it, your opinion changes and you change your course?

why not say what you mean, instead of doing a poll…

I was offered lots of money and I want it…or

I’m just leading them on and I’m going to burst their bubble and slam them yet again.

You have been asked to do business with a person who has had to be dragged, apparently kicking and screaming, toward ethical behavior.

If you have judged the person (or organization) to be acting in a manner that does not meet your ethical standards, why do you even need to ask this question?

Mike - Take the money. Duh. - Rex

Everything you guys have ever reported about them was 100% true. Knowing that, why in God’s name would you take any ads from him for any of his products?

Here’s what you do: Tell him to go screw and instead of taking advertising, tell him to whore his crap to his lackeys that he pays to write about mortgage refinancing and hyrdoxycut.

I say you shut the F up about IZEA or PPP whatever you want to call them and quit giving them free publicity.

This is a weird question to ask, because with your readership I’m positive the majority of readers either use RSS feeds or visit with Firefox / Adblock. So we don’t see ads anyway. You can go ahead and take anyone’s money you want, it won’t change the experience for us at all

Michael isn’t getting what Ted already understands - All these “anti-PPP” posts are advertising, and free at that. The longer Ted keeps the “controversy” going, the longer the free ads last. Why else would he seek to place ads on a hostile blog?

I’m glad this blog is covering this topic, but I can’t believe it is seriously considering taking the money. While I don’t want to get into a debate over the nature of journalism, and this site certainly crosses lines journalists would never dream of crossing, the very concept - even if disclosure is clear and unambiguous - is not what blogs should be about. It is dishonest, plain and simple.

Additionally, to all of the commenters who basically say, “Take the money and run”, I would urge you to think about pretty basic corporate social responsibility. It’s not a crazy, left field concept, and there’s good evidence to support the notion that it actually increases profit margins over time.

I have to wonder how many of the comments here (and the votes in the poll) are genuine?

Wait! I know what this is all about(so does everyone). You want IZEA’s money. But you can’t put their ads here since that would be against “your stand on Payperpost” which means you will be ridiculed later.

So you put in a poll and pray that your readers vote for the ad(or maybe even manipulate the results).

Clever!

So who’s better? Ted or MA?

I think you should make your own decision and not depend on a poll. From some of your other posts condemning ppp I would think your answer would be a flat out no. I’m sure people will read you regardless.

I did PayPerPost for 3 months and now I have funds for my new MacPro. I did get kicked out from the Internet by Google but heck I was only risking $50 all time(1 year) Google income from Adsense. At least I’m not doing anything fraudulent like hiring Adsense clickers(check out careerbuilder.com for companies who are hiring). I made the money by my own sleepless nights.

See, there are plenty of stay-at-home-moms who are trying to augment their family income by doing PPP(Izea) because they are not SEO hot shots like you who can figure out how else to make money from blogging.

Why is PPP looked down upon from TLA or Reviewme? Big time bloggers are “reviewing” companies so how different is it for small time bloggers to advertise and/or review companies with Izea?

I read different PPP blogger’s sites mostly stay-at-home-moms and PPP gave them a sense of empowerment to be able to make some money for shopping or to pay for ballet lessons for their kids or even help pay to get out of debt.

High and mighty bloggers should also think of small time bloggers too because they are people just like them looking for a space in the Internet.

I looked up RealRank and it seems like a good idea, so what is the problem with that? You are not promoting PayPerPost, you are promoting RealRank… 2 different products!!! Do you have issue with PPP or the whole company? If your problem is with the whole company then don’t advertise. If it is just with their pay per post product then go for it…

Democracy sucks… You always piss of 49% of the people.

Talk about unprofessional way to handle potential advertising.

then again, hey if you’re giving publicity away for free I’ll take two posts too please.

Erick has no say in the ads that appear here - or did he agree to it too?

What about Heather - the CEO? When you hired her, you said she would do everything business-wise - what does she say? Does advertising run through you Mike or is it a team decision - or does Heather make the ad decisions?

Wonder what Duncan thinks - course he just copies stories already out there so he probably doeznt care!

If you have serious problems with a major aspect of a company’s products or services then you shouldn’t accept their ads.

On the other hand, if IZEA turned a Plaxo and went legit, then it would be worth considering.

On that note, I haven’t totally become a Plaxo supporter but due to Nick’s posts I’m open now to checking them out. But that’s because he pointed out that they stopped the nasty stuff.

Not to equate Plaxo and IZEA but you get my point if it’s worth getting.

If you really feel this is an issue of integrity, then don’t take the money. My yes/no vote doesn’t matter.

# 32 - “Poll is flawed. They posted this link on their forums. Of course all their posties re now coming here and voting in favor of the ads.”

It wasn’t a scientific poll to begin with. Once the pollster (Michael) shares his opinions of the company and states how he is voting it automatically skews the results.

Second, it should go without saying that even if we accept their advertising, it isn’t going to affect our editorial coverage of the company.

Why should this “go without saying?” Is it because it’s never happened before, and so would never be possible in the future? Is it because you’re too lazy to explain why? Is it because it actually will affect editorial and you don’t want to admit it?

These PPP/Izea people are lamers who only tweak their model out of potential client concerns but the fact remains that the internets at large are not really interested in their business model which interferes with the free exchange of information and ideas. Ideological, I know, but the fact that they’re crawling back to those companies who have rejected them in the past means they are not yet able to subscribe to the “living well is the best revenge” philosophy. Drown the kitten, even if it has a rectum full of cash.

Nevertheless, Techcrunch has already helped these idiots out by running this stupid poll. Even if TC doesn’t take the ads, PPP will be able to run around and tell potential clients, “LOOKARZ, 33% OF TECHCRUNCH REEDARS SAY WE ARE THE AWESOMEST.”

So maybe they’re paying you for the poll already?

First off, you should have an advertising policy you should be applying this question to. I suggest you create one immediately. Second, an old post from TPM comes to mind:

“If we reject ads that we disagree with, every ad we accept becomes, to one degree or another, a de facto endorsement. And that’s a de facto endorsement that is tied to money we’re paid to run the advertising.
[...]
Do we ever reject ads? Yes, we do. In most cases they’re ads for ‘dating services’ that look like they might run afoul of anti-solicitation laws or sites that promise to show you this or that starlet with her boobs exposed. Not that we’re against boobs, but … a time and a place. Going back a few years there were also some ads for anti-Bush goods that I rejected because I found them tasteless. We of course frequently reject ads that are too visually jarring and we’re pretty strict on not having ads that have little creatures running across the site or stuff like that. I would reject an ad that contained what I considered hate speech or an ad which itself seemed intentionally demeaning to our audience. But again, I would always try to err on the side of inclusion.”

Hope that helps.

I don’t care too much what your policy is, so long as you stick to it no matter which company wants the ads. Enforce it fairly, and you need to worry about.

First, I grew up gifted prediction… Berlin wall, falling wtc, katrina, etc…
I even knew Microsoft join arms with Facebook.

1. There is no Google Operating system. Google engineers lie to people. They claim Google did not use Unix source, Linux or Linux Kernel.
2. Yahoo buys Zoho; stock whoop up $40 dollars a share.
3. Facebook OS. You will see cool parakey (facebook UI). More college student buy afforable college OS.
4. Google and Facebook throwing chairs and turn into UFC bloodfest.
5. Chad Hurley becomes CEO of Apple Inc; Steve Chen becomes president.
6. Mark Zuckerberg becomes CEO of Microsoft and controls MS facebook.
7. New York Times will launch NYT television rival CNN, FOX, MSNBC.
8. Terry Semel become CEO of timewarner.
9. Google need operating system fast without using Linux or Unix mode. Forsee this Unix Stock (SCO group)
10. Marissa Mayer quits Google and becomes CEO of unknown search engine company.
11. Prince William become King of England.
12. Britney spears marry some black guy.

by idiot….

Since you’re throwing an internal decision out to your readership, here’s a solution that most of the readers have no doubt already sorted out…

Firefox + Adblock = Moot post.

Dear Mr. Arrington,
It would be in the interest of this nation’s slowing economy to allow IZEA to advertise on your website. Our nation depends on the free flow of money, and this would surely satisfy that need. This deal is especially timely because I just dropped the FFR, thus money is cheaper and capital should flow more easily. Finally, I am sure that you will spend the money more wisely and efficiently than Mr. Murphy, thereby increasing the multiplier effect of investment. The ripple will be felt throughout the economy, and consumption should rise.

Yours,
Ben

PS. No worries-I’ve got inflation covered Mike.

I think Michael has a secret love affair with Ted, and deep down he loves PayPerPost.

This post may get more angry responses than Dan Ackerman’s.

Where is “editorial integrity”?

“I think Michael has a secret love affair with Ted, and deep down he loves PayPerPost.”

I agree

In california, you can marry man to man and touch each others wee wee legally…. Mike will setup wedding plans for Ted Murphy.

@84: I’m thinking that the PPP and Dan stories are of a piece. What we learn from these and future stories is that the business drivers behind many Web2.0 technologies is fundamentally corrupted. They don’t have to be, and there are people doing good work with integrity, but the bizscape is being built by those who are willing to race to the bottom. It’s the MBA way.

Take their money, it will help put them out of business (which is inevitable) a bit faster. “Real Rank” LOL what a joke!