Leveraging Blog Space

Payperpost.com is asking bloggers to create a post on their blogs, paying attention to the "opportunity requirements" that specific advertisers have set forth. Then, the blogger must submit the direct link to Payperpost, who will review the content and approve or deny the post (unless they get busy). If it is denied, they give the blogger a chance to revise and resubmit. (In sum, you can turn your blog into an advertorial as opposed to an editorial.)

It's an interesting idea that has been around for some time. What's a little fresher as a concept is that Payperpost.com also launched Rockstartup, which is either a very clever or very deceptive step in Web advertising because it takes on the guise of a Web 2.0 reality TV show (dedicated exclusively to one young entrepreneur "building the next monster company"). Of course, they aren't alone in taking bloggers seriously.

A less hyped approach to finding bloggers is being offered by Umbria Inc., which is self-defined as a market intelligence company that specializes in blog research and consumer-generated media (CGM) for market insight, today released Umbria Connect, a service that provides URL source lists to companies hoping to connect with individual bloggers. Basically, the company gathers publicly available CGM sources to locate individual bloggers writing about topics or themes of interest to marketers and then sells the blog URLs to help marketers engage bloggers. (Telemarketing and junk mail at its core, minus the telephone.)

Umbria Connect defines itself as a way to connect people who care deeply about specific topics in order to help companies take advantage of product/feature attitudes, word-of-mouth campaigns, marketing and advertising tests, custom marketing panels, and competitive perception insight. Business Week defines it as “a system to sift through millions of blogs in real time, looking for market intelligence. Umbria breaks down English messages into the smallest components—words, phrases, grammar, even emotions—and turns them into math." You can define it for yourself at Umbria.

While these are just a few examples to dispel any notion that blogging is already dead in its tracks (as some ignorant communications specialists claim), such maneuvering in the marketplace could actually cause the demise of many bloggers, if they are too eager to be taken in under someone else's agenda. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it's always nice to know if the blog source is on the product payroll.