This morning we posted an article about the new site from Izea, its called SponsoredTweets and provides Sponsored Twitter messages. It now seems as though Izea are launching a lot of new products and upgrades at the moment, including an upgrade of their Payperpost system. Payperpost is a system in which advertisers can purchased articles on related blogs. Sponsored blog posts has been a very big discussion in this industry for a very long time and I dont think it is great. However, if you are a small blog it could be a very nice source of income for simply just providing a link to a certain product, cause for advertisers it is just about building up incoming links. However, if you are a large site it then becomes an issue because your readers are wanting to hear your opinions and thoughts and not just an article promoting a product you dont even like or use.
Anyways Payperpost are launching a new version of their marketplace. If you are wanting to check out their new service then you can take a look here.
As everyone knows there has been a lot of talk about PayPerPost and their relationship with Michael Arrington and other bloggers, today PayPerPost might have just proved that their image needed to be changed thus re-branding as IZEA. In business the basic principle is “why change something if it’s working”, and since PayPerPost have pissed off a lot of A list bloggers it has developed a bad image and I dont believe if PayPerPost was loved in the blogosphere they would have changed their name.
Overall, I think this was a good move by PayPerPost because they needed to move the image of their key product away from the overall umbrella company. This could only be done with the inclusion of a new brand that would control the group. This is of course a difficult long term decision to make, but needed to be done.
PayPerPost will never get me to sign up or have any of my business, but as a business decision well done!
Michael Arrington over at Techcrunch has post a very interesting article today about PayPerPost and how they reacted to a rejection by a potential employee and also how they are not happy with Arrington at all.
A couple of weeks ago Arrington wrote a post about how PayPerPost CEO Ted Murphy took all employees on an all-expenses-paid offside to Club Med, where they got drunk, inexplicably dressed up as Native Americans (complete with red face paint) and then posted video of the whole racially offensive episode on the web. Normally I like to head out and get quite drunk with a few friends, but on company money and then acting innappropriately, not the best idea for a company that needs to base itself around a very professional image.
Now it is reported that PayPerPost have been very unprofessional towards a potential employee. I am not going to go into all the details, but they can be found on Techcrunch.
An interesting twist however to the whole story is that PayPerPost seem to have turned nasty now on Arrington. One of the PayPerPost VC’s, John Stein at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, has been pitching bloggers to write post saying Techcrunch has gone too far with his criticisms. PayPerPost think they are a very real threat to Techcrunch but I think this cant be further from the truth. Techcrunch as far as Im aware doesnt receive payments for reviews, but this is the key principle behind PayPerPost.
If someone from PayPerPost does read this article I would really like to know how they think they might be a real threat to Techcrunch and their key fundamental business!
This morning we posted an article about the new site from Izea, its called SponsoredTweets and provides Sponsored Twitter messages. It now seems as though Izea are launching a lot of new products and upgrades at the moment, including an upgrade of their Payperpost system. Payperpost is a system in which advertisers can purchased articles on related blogs. Sponsored blog posts has been a very big discussion in this industry for a very long time and I dont think it is great. However, if you are a small blog it could be a very nice source of income for simply just providing a link to a certain product, cause for advertisers it is just about building up incoming links. However, if you are a large site it then becomes an issue because your readers are wanting to hear your opinions and thoughts and not just an article promoting a product you dont even like or use.
