Media Culpa

Swedish PR agency JMW runs one of the better local PR blogs. The agency is currently redesigning its site and you can get a sneak preview of the new site here (sorry guys, but the link was clearly visible via Technorati so I had to look). The site is obviously not ready for launch yet, since it has content like this: “Jupiter comfortably sacrificed the botulisms, although two pawnbrokers drunkenly towed one quixoti subway, and the trailers sacrificed umpteen wart hogs.”

Besides, isn’t it strange that Technorati is able to pick up this link but fails to find these links to my blog from Boing Boing and Buzzmachine, two A-list blogs?

Tags: Technorati, pr. Ping.

It’s a challenge for mainstream media to involve readers in the news production with maintained quality. Remember six months ago when one of Metro’s citizen journalists copied an article from Expressen and published it in Metro with his own byline? This week the competing free daily Punkt SE (online at Aftonbladet.se) publishes an article by a reader that is identical to an article published by the artist Ken Ring on Sourze in 2001. [Via Göken]

It’s not extremely difficult to do a quick search and see if there is a risk of plagiarism. I just picked a random phrase and googled it, and found the original piece. The article had also been used in its entirety in an online forum in August 2006 and on Ken Ring’s blog in November 2006.

Tags: plagiarism, citizen journalism, Sourze, punktse. Ping.

A Swedish online retailer (evasunderklader.se) that sells sexy underwear has approached a number of bloggers with an offer to receive a lottery ticket (Triss) worth 3.55 USD in exchange for a mention and a link on their blog. Many bloggers have already swallowed the bait. A link search on Technorati this morning showed only three incoming links that are older than one week, but 23 links the last 7 days. A similar search on Knuff, a Swedish blog portal, gives us 23 incoming links the last week and no links before that, so the deal seems to be paying off.

Several bloggers are very transparent and post the email with the instructions from the sender, Lina Månsson. Other bloggers state that they have been encouraged to blog about the site, but leave out the part with the payment.

But there are bloggers who completely distort the reason behind the link, like Per Jodenius, a key figure in the 2006 Swedish electoral espionage affair:

“One of my buddies shopped there a while ago and was very pleased. He thought I should give a tip about this site on my blog. Since I am a nice pal I do as he wishes”

I can see that bloggers might be tempted to earn a quick buck by simply posting a link on their blog and as long as they are candid about the circumstances, there’s no real problem, right? A little surprising is when people who are in an official position, like being a member of the local council, allow their blog to become a marketing channel for underwear. But that’s their choice. What is more difficult to digest is when the payback part of the deal is not disclosed or when bloggers simply lie about the whole arrangement. I mean, how dumb are you if you don’t realize that many other bloggers have gotten the same offer and that at least some of them will be telling the truth? The details will be known to everyone in no-time and if your story is completely different, you look pretty silly.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that bloggers can be bought for less than 4 dollars. If you aren’t well known it probably doesn’t even harm your reputation one bit, so why not go for the freebie? Personally, I would strongly recommend to be transparent about pitches like these. Either way, let me ask you this:

– do you really think that Lina Månsson exists, and if you knew that you have been lied to, would you still post the link?
– if you knew that the company behind the site, MTY, owns a store that sells products that, let’s say, can be helpful in the bedroom, would you still post a link?

Internetbrus has also received the email and reveals that it was sent from marcinnowak.se, an SEO consultant. Marcin Nowak also happens to be the holder of the domain name evasunderklader.se.

Tags: blog relations, underwear, mutor, bloggar. Ping.

Interesting initiative. Marketwatch writes that Washington Post hosted a blogger meetup earlier this week. The paper invited anybody who blogs about Washington D.C. and about 100 bloggers turned up.

“This was a chance for all sorts of local bloggers to hear from Post news executives about how the paper is not equipped to cover the micro-local events and issues that bloggers specialize in, and to explore ways in which the paper, its website and bloggers can collaborate, at least by referring readers to one another’s work,” Marc Fisher wrote.

Executives at the Post talked about sharing revenues with local bloggers from ads sold by the paper’s sales staff.

Tags: washington post, DC, advertising, reklam, tidningar. Ping.