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March 13, 2005
But who shall review the reviewers of the reviewers?
There's been a lot of talk about transparency in the blogosphere, but until today I had no idea that anyone was extending the concept to blog advertising. That's right; in the same way that readers might leave a comment relating to a blog post, consumers can leave comments relating to blog advertisements. For example, this ad for Lightscribe has already drawn seven comments: Lightscribe Welcomes Your FeedbackThe following reason is given for ad transparency: Weblogs, Inc. Focus Ads are meant to create transparency in advertising — helping our readers to gain insight and helping our advertisers to create a better product or service. Our advertisers participate because they believe in their brands and are willing to improve them through the feedback of enthusiasts.Obviously, no one can compel an advertiser to allow comments, any more than a blogger can be compelled to allow them. I do see a possible downside to such "transparency," and that is the possibility of its misuse by cutthroat competitors. In a tight market, it might be in their interest to employ "shill commenters." Naturally, this could cause the victimized business to retaliate, by posting bogus favorable reviews, or counterattacks against the competing product. At precisely what point would a shill commenter be considered a spammer? Shill commenters? Gee, what am I saying? Next they'll be talking about transparency in commenting! Round and round it goes. AFTERTHOUGHT: I sure hope there's no political analogy to be made here. (Best not to go there, I guess.....) I'd hate to have to institute a new rule requiring every shrill troll to pay a shill toll! UPDATE: Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that John Hawkins is now shilling for an advertiser -- despite the fact that he'd previously characterized the very same advertiser as a "SNAKEPIT!" (Surely there's a power imbalance nexus in there somewhere. I say more power to right the power imbalance which is always caused by, of all things, an imbalance of power!) posted by Eric on 03.13.05 at 04:31 PM |
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Hmmm.... Maybe they could institute comment registration, as Dean Esmay does. I'm very strongly in favor of comment registration to keep out trolls. A shill toll for shrill trolls in an excellent idea, of course. Your style!
Myself I have not much comment on advertizing at the moment except to say that I don't care for most of it. That's one of the reasons I'm not going to put any on a blog entitled Up With Beauty, that would be a fatal contradiction. I do, however, like sexy ads. I notice that, at this writing, Michelle Malkin has two sexy advertizements showing beautiful women wearing Conservative T-shirts.
I notice that I'm Capitalizing a Lot of Words like "Conservative" these days. That strikes me as a Rightist thing to do. Dawn does that, and she also capitalizes "Individual". Perhaps I should, too.
Conversely, it strikes me as a Leftist thing to refuse to capitalize words that are traditionally capitalized, such as one's own name, though some Rightists do that, too, such as Jane M.r jane m., who one of my favorite commenters in Dean's World and the Queen's realm and who has commented here once or twice as well. She's not commenting quite as much now because she's involved with her church. She is a true Christian. The extremely interesting atheist Arnold Harris (otherwise a man of the Right on most spectra) got into a controversy in Dean's World over his refusal to capitalize religious names like "God", "Jesus", and "Mary". For a brief time in the early 1980s, when I was more to the Left on a number of spectra, I refused to capitalize the names of nations because I then equated nationalism or patriotism with fascism. I have since changed my views on that. It can be fascistic if the nation is placed above the Individual, but I now see nationality as primarily an extension of our Individuality.
The styles of it all!