Blogging, a place to speaks one’s mind or a new way for companies to reach their target market? Many people use blogs to see reviews on products, places, and even people. Can this be a resource for unswayed opinions? According to a recent article in the Mercury News, blogs are now using blog authors as an outlet for advertising. Microsoft recently gave out free $2000 laptops to blog authors with the hope of a blog review of their new Vista operating system. One thing this new practice does signal is the growing popularity of Blogs. Stated in the article “a choice now facing blogger,s” Do they intend to be a trusted source of insight and information for their readers, or merely the Internet's version of an infomercial?” and goes on to ask another question of should the use of freebies or financial backing be disclosed on that website.
To me this new marketing practice is not surprising. It actually seems like a somewhat inexpensive way to reach the consumer. How many people will start blogging if they know they will receive some sort of compensation for their effort? Millions! Paid vacation? Blog your travels! New Laptop? Write a positive review! Sounds good to me! On the topic of disclosing the freebies received for these blogs, I think it should be up to the author. If as a consumer you take the advice of a review that is the consumer’s decision. We are not forced to purchase products or a service; that is our freedom as consumers. If it makes the blog less trustworthy, then find a new resource for information. There will be blogs that will pride themselves on the fact that they don’t practice this type of influencing. They might even start charging people a small amount to join their oh-so biased blogs. People will find a way. They always do.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/16621026.htm
3 comments:
I think there is a great potential of blogs impacting consumers. I guess it really depends on who is blogging. Since anyone can blog, I think the source has to be somewhat reliable. Rarely do I read blogs. It's truly not a forum I enjoy. But, it seems to be the way many people are choosing to receive feedback on products, comparison shopping, keeping abreast of political events, etc. I wonder, however, if this is just a passing fad, or something that will become part of our culture. I guess only time will tell.
I haven't used blogs in this sense or anyother for that matter (only this class), but I have heard about people getting resourceful and opinionated information from blogs. I think that if the authors begin to except things then they would become influenced. If I were to receive a laptop from Microsoft I would feel obligated to give it a good review, or I would want to give it a good review so that I could get more free things. Then my opinion would be influenced and my review would be baised, the people reading my blogs may or may not know that I recieved the laptop and would view my blog as a good source of information. This reminds me of one of the ethical situations from our reading.
I also never spent much time on blogs until this class. I don’t have the time to peruse the internet in that way. I will admit, I read my husbands blog just to stay connected with him because out of the country. I also have used tripadvisor.com to learn the opinions of places I am interested in traveling. These opinions in a sense are a form of blogs. I find you have to willing to analyze someone’s opinion to know if they are used to luxury accommodations versus mid-range.
But back to your post about corporations trying to influence the blogger market. Recently, their was a story about John Edward’s camp hiring two bloggers to promote his campaign. This has back fired as the bloggers post proved to extreme. The actions of hiring the bloggers further blur the lines of a candidates position on issues. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/303892_erbe16.html (opinion piece) and http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=edblog09&date=20070209&query=%22john+edwards
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