PAY PER POST: A startup's awful reality
The last bubble produced Startup, a painful documentary about hubris and disappointment at a well-funded New York internet venture called Govworks. On the whole, entrepreneurs are wiser, and more discreet, this cycle. But not Ted Murphy of Pay Per Post.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second swing the blogosphere has taken at PayPerPost inside five weeks: TechCrunch had the company in the news again in late December 2006, and now Valleywag follows up by casting founder Ted Murphy as the exception to its claim that this cycle's entrepreneurs are wiser and more discreet than their predecessors. The reference point is deliberate — the documentary 'Startup', which recorded well-funded Govworks lurching from hubris to disappointment during the last bubble.
The story's reach matters as much as its sting: BuzzMachine picked up the same piece under the headline 'Pray per post' on or about February 1, 2007, so the mockery traveled beyond one snarky outlet into the core of the blog-world conversation PayPerPost depends on for its supply of posters and advertisers.
First-order effects
- Ted Murphy absorbs a coordinated reputational hit from two influential blog outlets at once — Valleywag's 'awful reality' framing and BuzzMachine's 'Pray per post' riff — landing on a company TechCrunch had already spotlighted a month earlier.
- The explicit Govworks comparison reframes PayPerPost from a novel paid-blogging venture into this cycle's designated cautionary tale, which colors how the press treats every subsequent move the company makes.
Second-order effects
- Bloggers and advertisers weighing participation in paid-posting schemes now have to price in the credibility baggage the category's best-known operator carries, not just the payment terms.
- Any rival or imitator in the pay-for-blog-content space inherits the taint: once one operator is cast as the bubble's fool, the whole model gets measured against the 'Startup' template.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, each funding cycle generates its own Govworks-style record — an artifact future commentators use to judge the next generation of founders — making discretion about internal operations a genuine survival trait for entrepreneurs, as Valleywag itself notes most of this cycle's founders have learned.
The trend: Each funding cycle is judged through the cautionary artifacts of the last one, and pay-for-content schemes draw the harshest dot-com-era comparisons.