Oh, *now* I remember

[hummingwolf]

One of the things that kept me busy on Saturday and a small part of Sunday was watching lj_biz, specifically this post about sponsored content on LJ followed by Brad's valiant attempt at damage control, both posts of course followed by umpteen zillion comments about how much people hate the idea of sponsored content. As bad as LJ's introduction of the change may have been, Making Light points out (link via supergee) that the real problem is what the publicists for The Science of Sleep did with the sponsored "community" they got for their money.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't hate advertising. In fact, I think it provides a valuable service (along with much entertainment) as long as it's informative (or at least entertaining) and not deceptive. The problem here is the erosion of trust created by a bunch of sock puppets pretending to be a community of genuine fans. I'm a big fan of real community. Fake "sponsored community" just makes me want to claw somebody's eyes out.

Comments

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

The mere fact of sponsored communities doesn't bother me so much as the ways unethical marketing departments will be tempted to use the tools they've bought access to. It already seems that sockpuppet accounts have been created just to hype the product and that innocent people have had to deal with accusations of being sockpuppets. While this is far from the first time trust has been eroded by people pretending to be something they're not, it is annoying that the marketeers doing so are rewarded for it by special treatment from SixApart.