The evolution of the blog is moving in on marketing.  A site called PayPerPost is offering up money for blog posts containing specific content on products or services.  Bloggers can get paid as much as $5 or more per post of which the topic can range from which search engine you prefer to reviewing a hair drug testing kit that parents can use on their kids.

BusinessWeek had a recent article on this very subject.  After reading it, I have to wonder if this is the new blogging fad, much like pay-per-click has been for the last few years.  To some extent, this is a great way to get word of a new product out to the internet.  What better way to publicize your new widget than to pay bloggers to comment on it.

A not so traditional effect of this type of marketing is that it induces a bias into an otherwise subjective review.  If a blogger gets paid $5 to talk up a  product, chances are, the product is going to get some good verbage.  On top of it all, the blogger is not required to reveal that he is getting paid to write the post, although the BW article suggests that it’s up to bloggers to uphold their own morality.

With this non-disclosure advertising, will product reviews hold any weight?  Will long standing review sites like CNET.com jump into the game, or will they be able to filter out paid opinions?  What effect will this have on pay-per-click advertisements?

This type of advertising will put more responsibility on the consumer to research products. While it’s hard to say if this type of advertising will catch on and become commonplace on the ‘net, but it’s sure got a good start.

It will be an interesting trend to watch, and one that David Houle at EvolutionShift along with his buddies at BlueLinerMarketing will surely have an opinion on.

Disclosure: I was not paid to write any of this…

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