How I enjoy watching the blogosphere from a distance, and how I have to bite my lip not to get overly involved. I’ve been doing that for quite some time now, but obviously failing that with my recent write-up about a blog sale, I just can’t help but keep going about the subject.

The write-up in question, about the sale of College Startup that makes $44/month going for $1,400, has attracted some attention. There is a post about it at the excellent Blog Herald which shows the author’s – Matt Craven – view on blog purchases. He has some experience in the matter, he bought Blog Herald not so long ago which of course made the blogosphere headlines. His post on the matter is a good read, but the best part is in the comments where College Startup buyer David Krug appear and explains himself. Well, sort of. Interesting follow-up.

Another matter that I have been watching from afar is the Payperpost mess. Payperpost is a service that pays you to blog about products in a positive manner, that is, you’re more or less giving away your editorial space and (perhaps) the integrity of your writing for the post in question. Naturally, it has made a lot of people out there scream in outrage, whereas others see it as a good opportunity to actually make some money blogging. Again, Blog Herald has a nice post with some comments about it and Shel Israel wants it to crash and burn - but why stop there? Weblogs Inc. CEO Jason Calacanies thinks it’s stupid, Aneil Weber thinks it will fail (but claims the service isn’t evil) while Techcrunch and Problogger both express more or less the same concerns.

Two things comes to mind regarding Payperpost. First of all, the payment is ridiculous. $15 is the most you can make at the moment, and you need to be a college girl – that’s not counting the Payperpost create-a-jingle-thingy where you can make a whopping $20… Most assignments gives you a couple of bucks to help pay your bills, but you’d need a whole bunch of those to really make a difference. Then your blog becomes an editorial-driven ad space without real content, and that’s bye-bye to your visitors, isn’t it? Then again, if the average bought post weighs in at $15-20 then it might be something that’d really have an impact, but at $3 it’ll soon be gone.

The other thing that comes to mind is the mess the Payperpost service has made in its wake in the blogosphere. I could link a dozen angry bloggers that more or less argues that this is the work of Satan, while another faction feels it’s a way to make money and that what it’s all about for a problogger, isn’t it? However, I think this is just a matter of something being so simplified that it’s worth to scream about. If you’re a large-scale blogger you’ve probably already been approached by numerous PR representatives that wants you to blog about their product. Some are subtle, sending you a sample to try out, while others more or less pays you downright. In the first case (getting review samples) it’s a good deal for the company in question since you’re probably not an experiences reviewer in the product niche, and then you’ll be more positive about the product than a professional. You might also feel gratitude, hey – you got a free mobile phone and that’s so cool, isn’t it?! That example is taken from the real world (hi LG Chocolate cell), and was aimed at lifestyle blogs which no know-how about mobile phones whatsoever. Compare the dedicated magazine’s verdict to the happy blogger and you’ll see quite a difference.

That being said, it’s not always a bad thing to review a product as a regular consumer, but since you’re probably in a position where you reach a lot of people – otherwise you wouldn’t be approached in the first place – you make an impact. Win-win or a cheap PR stunt for the product? That’s up to you.

In the other case, where you get paid to write a positive post about a product, your initial bid from the product’s PR representative will be a lot higher than the average Payperpost job.

I can’t really react to the Payperpost drama that’s unfolding on blogs and striking up strong emotions. It’s apparently a good business idea since it’s evoking so mixed feelings and therefore also getting a lot of free press – but it’s nothing new really, just an interface for some (in my opinion) really crappy deals that might as well end up on a lot of blogs since it’s so easy to get on the bandwagon. But I can’t see Payperpost threatening the blogosphere’s credibility more than PR persons have been doing lately, and that’s nothing new either – it has been a known fact that editorial content in a lot of magazines is more or less for sale.

Pressure from PR companies and advertisers are nothing new. Payperpost just takes all of this, slaps on a simple interface, bundle and sell it cheap. If you get pissed off about that, then I think you have a lot to learn about the bigger picture.