Today in "baffling marketing outrage" news, this
dispatch from animenewsnetwork, in which some amount of moral posturing is had on the subject of a "pay-per-post" program.
I, as you might guess from the tone of the opening paragraph, find all this sound and fury outrageous. Well, not really outrageous -- I'm not really convinced that paying for posts is a good thing -- so much as startlingly uncool. We've seen so many of marketing's traditional avenues destroyed -- did these people really imagine that new ones would not spring up to replace them? Are they so out-of-touch as to find this
surprising?
Pfft. Star Child wanted to increase the visibility of an upcoming show, and took the direct -- and extremely democratic -- route of paying independent outsiders to do it. This seems like a much better plan, both ethically and pragmatically, than changing the entire website skin for advertising purposes, as animenewsnetwork has done.
Or, put another way, I find this outrage disingenuous on a website whose very interface is for sale.
Besides, there's always been the potential for conflict of interest in this business, and we accept that because we have very little choice. As consumers, we have to handle it the same way we always have: by considering each piece on its merits and trusting outlets to the degree they have been reliable in the past.
words from chris, 2009-03-30 02:03:35, los angeles
