How Much Is Your Soul Worth? PayPerPost Now Lets Bloggers Set The Price
PayPerPost, the controversial blogging service that lets advertisers purchase commentary on blogs, has released a new product called PayPerPost Direct. The new product is a widget that bloggers can add to their blogs …
Context & Ripple Effects
PayPerPost has been a lightning rod since late 2006, when its marketplace for advertiser-purchased blog commentary drew fire over disclosure and blogger integrity (its return to the headlines that December). The criticism sharpened into a mainstream ethics debate by spring 2007 (the Los Angeles Times on blogging-for-dollars), building on a year-old question about how aggressively blogs should be monetized (first raised in May 2006).
PayPerPost Direct changes the mechanics rather than settling the argument: instead of taking assignments at marketplace-set rates, bloggers install a widget and name their own price to advertisers directly. That shifts the company from gatekeeper to facilitator, and hands individual bloggers pricing power they never had inside the exchange.
First-order effects
- Bloggers using PayPerPost can now negotiate one-off sponsored-post deals directly with advertisers at self-set prices, bypassing the marketplace's rate-setting entirely.
- PayPerPost's own economics shift from brokering every transaction to supplying the widget and taking a cut of direct arrangements.
Second-order effects
- Rival paid-blogging marketplaces face pressure to match the self-pricing model or cede the most established bloggers, who now have leverage to demand higher rates than exchange averages.
- Advertisers get a direct channel to specific blogs rather than buying reach across an inventory pool, pushing spending toward bloggers with proven audiences and away from long-tail participants — reinforcing the pattern noted in February 2007 coverage that most bloggers earn little while a few earn meaningfully.
Third-order effects
- If self-priced sponsored content spreads faster than disclosure norms harden, the unresolved ethics critique moves from a niche controversy toward pressure on search engines and ad networks to police or penalize paid commentary — the structural risk the service has carried since its launch.
- The blogger-advertiser relationship professionalizing into direct deals points toward sponsored content becoming a standard, negotiated line item in blog business models rather than an opportunistic marketplace activity.
The trend: Paid blog commentary is moving from centrally priced marketplaces toward blogger-controlled direct sales, with disclosure ethics as the unresolved constraint on the model.