Elliott C. Back: In Aere Aedificare

I’ve always thought about starting a user-moderated quotations site myself, but the market seemed too “niche” to front the development time. So it’s always nice to come across a nice quotes site, like http://www.onlinediscountmart.com/quotable-quotes.html. I’m not entirely sure who did their selection, but they have some great quotes. For example, on love:

“When love is not madness it is not love.” Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Now, this is classy stuff. I’ve actually read the original text this comes from–Calderón de la Barca’s epic play, La vida es sueño, written in 17th century Spanish.

They seem to have a lot of Christian/Inspirational/Bible quotes, so if you’re a hardcore leftist aetheist, the site might not be for you. However, their secular categories are sweet, well done, and classical:

“One word frees us
From all the weight and pain in life,
That word is love.” Sophocles

The specific terms regarding what you can post to earn money with PayPerPost has been upgraded:

All posts must remain up for at least 30 days.
You may post a maximum of 3 paid posts in any given day.
Paid posts may not be consecutive. Each paid post must be separated by at least one legitimate post.
All posts must be in English on an English Blog.
Your blog must be at least 90 days old with at least 20 pre-existing posts.
Your last regular post must have been within the past 7 days.
Content must be original. You may not post the same content on different blogs.

I have only one question: is this to prevent spam, or to foster linkselling? There’s nothing wrong with a little constructive SEO, but I’d like to hear “linkbuilding” or “backlinks” as the stated goal of Pay Per Post.

Techrunch rags on http://www.payperpost.com, but it’s more interesting to analyse the comments left on his post and on digg. Out of 67 comments on the Techcrunch post, here’s the breakdown:

Positive Comments: 24
Negative Comments: 23
Irrelevant Comments: 20

Clearly the landslide “this is evil vote” that Techcrunch expects is not there. Michael Arrington’s problems with the service stem from two clauses in the ToS:

There does not appear to be any requirement that the payment for coverage be disclosed. There is a requirement that PayPerPost.com must approve your post before you are paid. Wow.

Neither of these cause ethical blogging issues. If you use PayPerPost to supplement your blogging income by writing stories for it that you would have written anyway, or that are true to your actual opinions, disclosure is not needed, because you are not blogging differently because of the money. And, of course, Pay Per Post needs to keep an eye out for spam, or shoddy submissions. So, where’s the problem here?

A commenter on digg writes:

maybe I’m just new to this medium but it seems to me that a lot of these negative reactions are coming from Bloggers who feel threatened. Bloggers who are probably already getting paid to write via sponsors/advertisers. If that is not the case, then good for you.

For most bloggers, this is a good things. For bloggers whose earnings depend on relationships with various advertisers, it’s a bad thing. Big blogs–like big magazines–probably sit closely with the subjects they write on in a behind the scenes agreement. Now, small blogs can automatically tap into that revenue flow. Is it impossible that Techcrunch might feel threatened? Other blogs will be earning $105 for writing their own Pay Per Post reviews.

You could either go explore the official site (http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/spiderman3/site/), visit IMDB’s listing (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413300/), or come check out this post. Together, Spiderman I & II grossed $1,591,000,000 worldwide with a combined budget of $339,000,000. If that isn’t a sucessful franchise, what is? Spiderman III, coming out May 4th, 2007, will break the box office once again. Bet on it!

Here’s a little teaser photo from the official trailer:

If you’re interested in following more about the movie, people have been reporting commando-style from the shooting locations! I can definitely say that I’ll be watching it when it comes out.

Let me know what you think about the Spiderman franchise in the comments, please!

Techcrunch has a rather negative review of the new blog-oriented company PayPerPost (http://www.payperpost.com), but I have to disagree with his analysis. He writes, critically:

Is this a bad joke designed to torpedo the blogosphere’s credibility in general? It doesn’t appear to be. If we’re all trying to negotiate a space between Hollywood and mainstream journalism, this is taking things way too far towards the most insipid parts of Hollywood.

See, blogging is about personal expression. If I want to blog about Peculiar Blue Dinosaurs, and Pay Per Post will happen to offer me a commission for writing about it, why say no? The only possible moral confusion I see is where the incentive is enough to sway a blogger’s opinion about the service, which for a successful, popular blogger is unlikely.

The SEO advantage, for publishers, is quite clear. For $5 a pop you get high quality custom links to your site from a variety of bloggers. You can’t control who posts, but the distribution will surely include some high PR sites. You’re also allowed to choose a tone, so you can beef up your PR image.

I think I’m going to try it out and see how it goes. If nothing else, there will be more posting than usual because instead of coming up with an idea, I’ll just be handed some topic to run with. But, I’m certainly not writing anything I’ll later regret!