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The DMW Interview with Ted Murphy, CEO and Founder, PayPerPost

Authored by Jay Baage on April 23, 2007 - 3:39pm.
Ever wonder what happened to PayPerPost, the controversial company that pays bloggers to write about products and other companies? It is alive and thriving. In fact, PayPerPost now claims “hundreds of thousands” of Dollars in monthly revenue and just closed a deal to acquire Zookoda, a provider of blog broadcasting services.
“We made a mistake early on in not requiring bloggers to disclose their relationship with us and the advertisers. We now require a full disclosure and really promote transparency through our network of bloggers”, says Ted Murphy, the CEO and Founder of PayPerPost.

PayForPost received a lot of negative press and attention when it was first launched. Critics pointed to that the advertisers and PayPerPost were tricking readers by paying bloggers to make up fictional testimonials about products and services. For example Jason McCabe Calacanis, an entrepreneur who co-founded Weblogs Inc., a network of blogs that includes popular technology site Engadget, put it as follows:
"PayPerPost versus authentic blogging is like comparing prostitution with making love to someone you care for deeply. No one with any level of ethics would get involved with these clowns."

However, most of the criticism stemmed from the fact PayPerPost did not require bloggers to disclose that they were in fact “blogging for money”. PayForPost say that it was a mistake that they have now corrected. Everyone that blog for an average of $13 per post for PayPerPost have to either have a site-wide disclosure policy or a badge saying something to the effect of “This post is brought to you by…”.
“The response we have been getting lately has been incredible and we now have several prominent advertisers like Maxim, Sports Illustrated, HP and Trump University”, says Ted Murphy.

PayPerPost is announcing tomorrow that it has acquired Zookoda, a company that provides a technology solution currently used by over 10,000 bloggers around the world to update their readers via email whenever they issue a new post. Over 2.3 million people opt-in to blog newsletters powered by Zookoda technology.
“We now have 5,500 advertisers and 22,000 blogs in our network, says Ted Murphy.
“Zookoda helps building traffic for our bloggers which in terms gives our advertisers more exposure.”

Joakim Baage

Related Links:
http://payperpost.com/
Blogging for dollars raises questions (Baltimore Sun)
tags: Internet | Marketing | Advertising | Blogs | Publishing | PayPerPost | Ted Murphy |



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