Pay Per Post, Another Broadcast Idea In An Interactive World

This sucks. Enough has been written about how Pay Per Post will wreck the credibility of the blogosphere.  I don't need to add to it.  But I will point out that the reason why Pay Per Post exists is that marketers still view blogs as ad outlets from which messages can be pushed, and nothing more.  In other words, we'll keep trying and failing to turn the blogosphere into a broadcast medium until marketers start to change their ways and get involved in the conversation directly.

What will force that change in thinking?  I'm hoping it will be a few compelling Conversational Marketing case studies.  Having something come along that destroys credibility in the blogosphere is therefore quite scary, as it begs the following questions - Is blogging the phenomenon that gets marketers to abandon the top-down approach?  Or will it be something else we haven't spotted yet?  If blogger credibility is destroyed, what new vehicle will carry the legit conversations?

The migration from top-down to bottom-up is inevitable.  It's just that I had counted on blogs to be the transformative vehicle.  But what if it's something else?

In closing, let me say that I have nothing but contempt for companies that try to launch "solutions" that are in direct conflict with the rules governing blogs, especially if they do so in a way that lets marketers remain secluded in their ivory towers.