Selling your soul

When I read blogs, I trust the author based on his reputation among other bloggers and who reads his blog. For one to be credible about a subject, I believe he/she should not let economics enter into the equation.

A-list bloggers are getting a lot of attention these days and we will soon see the deluge of offers from companies for "paid" reviews. Scoble has an interesting post on disclosing some items he received. Mike Arrington of TechCrunch writes about being offered money to write a review in his crunchnotes blog. And just today Kevin Burton, in his feedblog, talks about auctioning off a blog post on ebay to

" I'd review your product or whatever you wanted me to look at and add my honest commentary. "

So how honest can commentary be if your are being compensated? Isn't objectivity important in the blog world? Or is it about trading your high traffic ranking to make a quick buck.

I think disclosure is fundamental in blogging and I hope high profile bloggers will carry the torch with integrity.


Why we blog by Hugh Macleod (via crunchnotes)

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
Henry David Thoreau

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