There’s been a discussion going on lately after Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc. approached Fark about buying ads on its site… and discovered editorial was for sale, too. Calacanis was very disappointed: “I feel like I can never trust Fark again.”
My colleague Gary says:
Fair enough. Blog’s are cool. And they serve a very useful pupose of directing us to the cool, the interesting and the odd. If someone wants to imbue their blog with strict journalistic ethics, that’s great. If not….so what?!
And I say… it’s all about disclosure. As Calacanis says, “Fark.com could easily just put ‘Advertisement’ by the stories and their readers would click them 2x as much just to support Fark. It is so dumb.” No, blogs shouldn’t necessarily be held to the same standards as the New York Times, but — and I think most blog readers and writers would agree — it’s important to be up front about what’s going on. Isn’t blogging all about telling it like it is?
Along those same lines, Forbes.com has gotten all into the realm of controversy with its decision to test Vibrant Media’s IntelliTXT. It’s really weird, I must say, to be reading a news story that mentions the FDA, then see the words “the FDA” are a link, then mouse over it to find the link is actually an ad. Same goes for the word “cash” in the same story. What’s especially strange about it is that — unlike the Motley Fool UK — Forbes.com doesn’t take the opportunity to explain to readers what’s going on. There’s no “about this ad” link in the ad itself, and there’s no separate link to an explanation — at least not one that I can see (and I’m looking!) . There was also no decision to put the advertising inks in a different color — the Motley Fool UK used green.
UPDATE: Calacanis has a new post about Fark.