Flixwagon pay bloggers, non disclosure from bloggers or Flixwagon
I have been aware for a couple of weeks now that Israeli based mobile lifecasting company Flixwagon have been paying video blogger Sarah Austin of Pop17 to post video’s to their site.
I had only been made aware of this by a couple of sources who whilst disgusted would not give me permission to post and I wrote a very general post on the subject where the overwhelming response was one of outrage.
Sarah has also been overheard by numerous sources at the recent Summermash event discussing her deal with Flixwagon and wondering would QIK pay her $25k to move to them whilst not disclosing Flixwagon as a sponsor on her site.
I have been nervous about writing this as I am good friends with all the folks at QIK and didn’t want this to come across as sour grapes or any thing like that but the Techcrunch post today changes all that. I emailed Sarah and Flixwagon for a response and got below, flixwagon haven’t commented yet
“Wow! You must have heard wrong 25k a month is out of the ball park. I told Qik that I would go with them if they offered me a little more money.
btw, I don’t have a contract that says I have to be secretive about this, I just think it is better for business not to disclose that I stream with them for peanuts! Don’t tar and feather me for making money. I get paid by many people. You think I use Mogulus, Viddler or Rocketboom for free? How do you think I make money? I’m not just doing this for passion alone. I’m doing this to make money. blog.tv and ustream.tv also pay- and they pay a lot too. You can guess who they pay. “
Who do they pay Sarah? I notice you called Robert Scoble out in your comment on Techcrunch, was there a reason for this?
I contacted Robert and he has categorically denied being paid by any of the companies and left a comment on the post.
“I am NOT paid by Qik or Kyte or any other company other than those that sponsor my show. I choose what I use based on what I think is the best out there at the time. I don’t mind that people do such deals (making money with online media is very difficult) but I am troubled by the lack of disclosure. That’s a sponsorship and should be disclosed openly to your viewers/readers”
Sarah, so you would move for more Dollars and you still wouldn’t disclose, that makes it even worse
Paid bloggers accompanied by non disclosure is just not acceptable.
Here is a blogger doing a post on my favorite site where she compares the company that is paying her to two of its competitors and doesn’t disclose to the writer of the article Jason Kincaid that Flixwagon are paying her fees to do this.
This is wrong, there is no middle ground here
If you receive one cent you must disclose you must go public otherwise we are all tarred with the same brush.
Disclosure- I have never taken one gift for writing about a company, if I get a t-shirt it is given away, I am friends with people at qik and like the site, this has no bearing whatsoever on what I write here.
49 comments...What do you think?
Trackbacks...
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- Social Media Weekly Digest: 18 July 2008 - Krishna De: Branding, Personal Branding, Employer Brand, Internal Brand, Social Media Marketing
- My del.icio.us bookmarks for July 17th through July 19th | AccMan
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- Recent Links Tagged With "flixwagon" - JabberTags
Could not agree more. However, I used Flixwagon to live-broadcast my wedding this year, and now I’m thinking I should have told them to cough up some dough! (They didn’t pay me a cent).
A Chara Pat
good article. points very well made. Even for a guy like me not involved [employed] in the tech world - even I can tell the difference between right and wrong here and a basic code of morals and ethics.
bulaidh bós - well done
peter
Pat - FlixWagon sponsored GoMo News during CTIA and we used their technology this was our idea. They paid us for banners and coverage during the event - as it was a sponsored agreement.
They have not and do not pay me to use Flixwagon - we are entering into another agreeent with them (maybe) for the next CTIA -but it is a sponsored opportunity.
There is a difference between being paid and being sponsored.
WIN also sponsors GoMo News -but its really paid advertising and we don’t have disclaimers or be nice about things we don’t like.
Bena
I posted my comments over at TechCrunch, but absolutely, Pat - I’m 100% with you on this.
She’s very young. I’m not sure she grasps how credibility and longevity go hand in hand.
@Bena
if you disclosed the sponsorship its no problem whatsoever, if you didn’t at the time it is, IMO
Well said Pat,
if you are being paid to produce content, you need to disclose that fact in your content, otherwise you are lying to your audience.
As you say there is no middle ground. This is v. straightforward and, not to disclose displays at best naivety, at worst dishonesty.
I heard Scoble was paid by 1938Media to Qik…No denial from Scoble or Loren or Bhaskar….LOL
Point well made Pat. Bottom line: If you are paid just disclose it.
I think this is a very important topic and also believe its very important to disclose sponsorships, etc. The most difficult part about doing business is often the non-disclosures that businesses expect.
For instance, when the Zune player first came out, they wanted to feature Rocketboom on their zune website and we spent a lot of time working out the contract for that. Part of the deal was that we would host a Link and Zune logo to the Zune website on our website, as part of the cross promotional component. After everything was set, they said they forgot to give us an NDA which included a clause that said we were not allowed to be critical of Microsoft or the Zune.
http://dembot.net/011420.html
We pulled out of the campaign for that reason and luckily, I was able to blog about it. Most people would never be able to because they would of signed an NDA that would of prevented them from mentioning it. It turns out, I leaned, the problem is not so much with bloggers who often get stuck participating in what appears to be an industry standard, but rather, the industry standard of the NDA.
As a result of exposing this information about the Zune, you can see here how it lead to questioning the integrity of others who were a part of the same sponsorship:
http://www.geeknewscentral.com/archives/006589.html
I was there with Sarah during the time she negotiated the deal with Flixwaggon and Sarah and it is not a sponsorship and Flixwaggon is not paying Sarah to do anything specific with promoting the service aside from the obvious consequence that by having Sarah use the service it obviously helps to bring recognition to their name.
Also, it is true that Blog.tv and Ustream pay some of their live streamers for being on the service. Rocketboom has also received offers.
YouTube has what they call a partner program which gives extra benefits to YT creators as well and unfortunately, Im not allowed by law to fill you in on some of the details I know and enjoy with this.
One interesting story that I have not been able to tell yet has to do with our deal with TiVo. The day before the service was about to roll out, something I said to a publication was considered by the CEO of TiVo to be harmful to TiVo and against the terms of the NDA which required legal activity to resolve.
NDA’s are in fact a standard practice and while its needed to help prevent competitors from revealing secret company information, its a practice that leads to many gray areas, problems and legal issues.
Bloggers or others who wind up being solicited for their expertise need more resources and training to understand how to negotiate these issues, especially when engaging in journalistic activity.
Agreed Pat. I have been offered affiliation deals by businesses whose products I use with clients and I have refused. I suggest businesses/products/services based on their relevance and that is how it should be.
As with you (keeping in mind my significantly lower profile) I have never received anything for a product or service recommendation. However if I did receive a tshirt I would keep it I suspect
The business in question did not make that offer dishonorably - it is just a business model which they are used to working with.
keith
Great points Pat. I blog at the Realtime Unified Communications site about a lot of companies. I openly acknowledge that the publisher pays me as the resident editor of the site. But I don’t do anything with the companies I write about. Demo gear gets returned or given away depending on the vendors wishes.
On Digital Common Sense and Stardust, we simply don’t have any financial backing other than our own. If we did, I’d disclose it. I’ve never taken support money in 9 years of blogging, but disclosure is absolutely an issue of integrity to which we must all adhere.
@andrew
I note from Sarah’s comment to me that Rocketboom also pay her
Hope thats a disclosure
damn - great investigative reporting pat - you interested in a job with the centernetworks investigative bureau?
Very interesting discussion!
Even happens in Ireland Some bloggers here take bungs to write things about companies and I have no concrete proof but I know one journo is on a retainer with a few companies and forgets to mention this when he/she writes about how great they are.
Hey Pat, not to worry. I would never take money to say something and not disclose that. I actually go further though. I would never take money from someone for sponsorship or consulting if I didn’t believe in their product or service myself. I do have several sponsors and other consulting jobs though none of this interferes with my ability to uphold my journalistic integrity which I care the most about. Good points though.
i wish I was on a big fat retainer.
I could go out and score some RAM chips and a Mac Pro…
So at what point do you disclose, and when is disclosure meaningless?
For example, I write posts on Creative Weblogging–they pay me. I have also written posts for GigaOM and Web Worker Daily–they pay me, too. I’ve also written on voip.com’s corporate blog–they also pay me as well. I think that constantly disclosing I’m paid for these posts is silly because it should be inherently obvious someone is paying me for those posts.
There’s also the whole concept of Sponsored Posts that Creative Weblogging does, which while I’m not a huge fan of writing these posts, they are at least properly disclosed that they are sponsored.
I also blog/write a fair bit about Nokia. On this topic, I disclose–almost to a ridiculous degree–that I work for them. So yes, I am big on disclosure.
If she’s badmouthing the other services and she’s getting paid by Flixwagon, then yes, that’s a clear conflict of interest and it should be disclosed immediately. Based on what I’ve read, though, it’s not clear to me Sarah Austin is violating any ethical standards here, though it is a gray area. If it were me, I’d disclose.
@phoneboy:
“I write posts on Creative Weblogging–they pay me. I have also written posts for GigaOM and Web Worker Daily–they pay me, too. I’ve also written on voip.com’s corporate blog–they also pay me as well.”
That’s fine. Those are all blogs that pay their writers and disclose that. The issue is that when you write *about* Creative Weblogging, GigaOM, and WWD, you need to let readers know you are paid by them.
I agree that if people are effectively writing advertorials, that this should be disclosed. I’d tend to IP ban them for being boring.
Should a freelancer disclose in an article for my company Pharma Marketletter, how much they get? Or can we leave it to the audience to assume that guest writers either do it for cash or vanity? Why assume bloggers are “objective”? It’s a very leftist American obsession IMO.
I assume that any blogger I don’t know personally could be a psycho trawling for victims, a PR stooge, a lunatic, all three at once, or even just a regular person.
Caveat lector!
Excellent post, Pat. The real problem here is whether the acceptance of money changes the position of the blogger or videoblogger.
For example, I repeated a comment from Flixwagon’s VP, Sarig Reichart, in a post on GoMo News about the difficulty I was experiencing with the company’s software on an N95 8GB during which he revealed, “Flixwagon doesn’t play well with the N95 8GB”. The company was very unhappy and the post was deleted by Bena Roberts.
Is that a problem? I think so, because the comment was made by the company and it was the acceptance of sponsorship that caused the masking of a real problem with using the service.
Even though I solicited and secured the sponsorship with Flixwagon for the production I created, it didn’t seem reasonable to suggest that a problem didn’t exist. However, I also said that Flixwagon was working on a solution and that the production was able to continue. There was no agreement in place to compel deletion of the post, rather it was a response to a paying “customer.”
There are certainly gray areas in the issue of payola and sponsorship, and on occasion even with disclosure the acceptance of money colors a site owner’s ethics and behavior.
you guys are so western .. you want your function in the times of india, you have to pay, article placement in indian newspapers is so common as to be normal. journalists get baksheesh all the time.
what she is doing is completely normal in this world.
Yes well GregoryLent…
baksheesh is the reason the “third world” got the way it is today: no serious economic development from 1100 to 1900 and in some cases, getting worse since 1960. The problem with baksheesh is it prevents a business from operating in a known framework of law. Not a problem for gangsters or politicians, but a real problem for someone trying to invest for a project that will take longer than three months.
It may also be the reason that The Economist, The Times, The Financial Times, Les Echos and so on, are more reputable than the Indian newspapers you think are so marvellous.
In fact, if you look at a corruption ranking, like that of Transparency International, the richer countries tend to be the ones with less corruption.
I suggest you read Economics in One Lesson, or if you can read French, try “ce qu’on voit et ce que l’on ne voit pas” by Frederic Bastiat. It explains the hidden cost of crime, vandalism and corruption.
On the other hand, you’d think a business cared about the image it would give by engaging in underhand marketing techniques. Only excuse is inexperience, or desperation…
hi antoine,
of course all you say is correct, but nothing of what you say, if read to a person with a different understanding, would change anything in how that person conducted their business
i was trying to use this short comment form to suggest that different minds about this subject exist in the world, nothing is particularly obvious about conducting oneself one way or the other
This used to bother me, until ‘disclosure’ became so silly, where the consumer has to sit through pages and pages of drollish ‘acceptance speech’ spun transparency.
I’ve been a paid blogger in the past and it was so laden down with disclosure that it’s like, damn, someone should have paid me to write disclosures.
It also reminds me of car commercials on the radio where it seems half the commercial is the tax, license and doc fees may apply, void where prohibited, may cause drowsiness, use only as directed is a registered trademark of and other property owners zzzzzzzzz.
Of course I GET the ethical concerns, esp with journalistic concerns, that’s fine. We’ve been down that road a million times before. But hell, in the blogger/journo-blogger circle, we can pretty much look at social relationships and see the biases that some bloggers have, and that trickles down to fair/biased coverage.
Do we need to disclosure who we like/dislike/sleep with/secretly admire because it will affect our transparency? Sheesh.
Pop17 is utterly boring, so I couldn’t care less. This girl doesn’t ask questions, just lets the company guys make their marketing blabla.
Maybe all of them have paid?
I had to erase her feed from my video podcasts because I couldn’t stand it no more. The Feed, MobuzzTV and Nataly Delconte from CNet do a much better job.
But Pat:
To be fair you should have disclosed in your blog post that you are a big buddy of Qik’s Bhaskar Roy.
Maybe you are yourself a pawn (or another figure) in the match between these two competing companies?
@markus
“I have been nervous about writing this as I am good friends with all the folks at QIK and didn’t want this to come across as sour grapes or any thing like that”
which part of this don’t you get, I couldn’t be clearer I think, disappointed at that low blow buddy, I think every man and his dog knows I am friends with the guys at QIK, This had absolutely no impact on this story, I knew about this for months and never wrote it because I was so concerned about clarity. I can tell you I have absolutely no conflict of interest here and ask a question
Do you think I would write a post like this if I was conflicted?
Pat, while Markus’ comment might have been delivered poorly, there’s still a point there– and I alluded to it above in a generic sense– our *social relationships* can affect others’ perceptions of what’s going on.
When someone from Pownce had some issues with stalker-types on Twitter, the fact she worked at Pownce eventually worked its way into the conversation–eventually taking over the original point.
I doubt there’s a big social conspiracy with you bringing up the Flixwagon thing, seeing as how you’ve said you’re pals with the Qik guys– but other’s won’t.
And back to the original point: while we obsess about financial disclosures, the SOCIAL relationships are the things that rarely are disclosed, and perhaps, a far worse problem in the long term.
the blond kid probably felt no conflict either, and simply went ahead …
much is also revealed about our attitudes toward money and selfishness here too … much of this is simply codified supsicion … which is codified fear … and we all have to grow up sooner rather than later
“Here is a blogger doing a post on my favorite site where she compares the company that is paying her to two of its competitors and doesn’t disclose to the writer of the article Jason Kincaid that Flixwagon are paying her fees to do this.”
This wasn’t her article, and she wasn’t doing the comparison. She had nothing to do with the idea, the setup, the questions, or even the post-taping analysis. She was just the only person around the office at the time who wasn’t camera shy.
ok, here’s my long text and video take on this issue and video blogging disclosure at the macro level:
http://www.centernetworks.com/video-blogging-disclosure
OK, Pat had disclosed his relationship correctly.
I had overread it when I posted my comment. I was reading only the comments on my phone and didn’t have the original text on the screen anymore.
My fault. Excuse me!
I think it’s a fair question to ask: at what point do you disclose? What pertinent details should be disclosed (e.g. financial arrangements, friends). I tend to disclose financial arrangements (e.g. if a party of the discussion is paying me).
Of course, just because those arrangements are in place doesn’t mean you can’t be objective, either.
Great job on your story. I am not involved in the media world but why would I want to use a product that pays people to use their stuff without us (general population) knowing? I feel that ethically and morally this is wrong. If your being paid to use flixwagon or whatever else is out there we (general population) have a right to know.
Really great post, Pat, and a hat tip to Andy for posting about it - that’s how I got here. The range of responses here shows just how touchy this topic is, and it’s hitting a lot of nerves, which is why do this stuff.
I’m with most people here that some form of disclosure is necessary when money is involved. I’m very old school, and take issue with Phoneboy’s comment that we should assume that the blog posts he referred to were paid entries. I assume exactly the opposite.
It sure sounds like a lot of people out there are getting paid to blog, and when they are, they should make that point clear. Nobody have ever offered to pay me to blog, I’ll tell you that - and I’ve done a guest post with Om too. Sure, we all do what we do for money, but blogs are free to read, and the reader should expect that most blogs are written from the heart, not the wallet. Sure makes me wonder sometimes why bother blogging at all if I’m not getting paid and everybody else is.
It’s one thing to have your blog sponsored, and another to have specific content paid directly to the writer. Lots of gray area here for sure, and I’d love to see this topic played out on a bigger stage. I’ve taken up enough of your time - thanks for indulging me.
I equate paying bloggers to write the same way I equate paying reporters to write stories for a newspaper. However, in a newspaper, that relationship is generally more clear, whereas online, it’s a bit difficult to tell.
Looks like we’ ve got a nice sidebar thread going here, which is great. Regarding PhoneBoy’s rebuttal, I TOTALLY disagree, and I think your comment lies at the root of the problem.
Sorry, but journalism does NOT equal blogging. This is bad logic and I’ve been railing on about this for ages. Journalism is a profession - they’re trained and are held up to editorial scrutiny. Blogging is NOT is this category - regardless as to whether the bloggers have the best content - which often IS the case.
However, bloggers are not paid to blog and they’re not accountable to anyone, and it’s just fallacious to say there’s not much difference. Bloggers may get paid to write a particular post about something, but they’re not generally paid to blog. They make their living doing other things, and paid blogging is found money.
That’s very different from journalists - they’re not paid by a specific vendor to write about them - that’s an advertorial - or it’s just payola - unless they’re upfront about it. And that’s the issue Pat is raising in his post with Flixwagon. Sorry, but that’s a very different kettle of fish, and if bloggers want to be taken seriously outside their immediate circle of readers, they need to play by the same rules as journalists. Pay to play is not the same as journalism, plain and simple.
I am not saying that bloggers are journalists. Let’s not start that debate.
Some bloggers, particularly those who work for a blogging network like Creative Weblogging, get paid to produce content. Other than the sponsored posts thing I mentioned before, there is little to no editorial control. They are mostly concerned with the generation of content about a specific topic, but there are standards.
Reporters likewise get paid to write stories for whatever news organization they work for. The fact that reporters get held to higher standards is not really relevant to my point. The fact is, they are getting paid to produce content by a third party unrelated to what the content is about. And if that’s the case, what benefit is there in disclosing?
Now if the content is related to the party paying somehow (e.g. the party in question or a competitor), then disclosure is absolutely required.
Sarah Austin no doubt should have recused herself in this particular endeavor with TechCrunch. I certainly would have under similar circumstances. However, as I understand it, she did not write the piece in question or the conclusions. Flixwagon was the worst of the bunch. If her “bias” entered into it, wouldn’t the results have been different?
The other important point to make: just because someone’s payng you doesn’t mean you’re necessarily biased towards them. It is possible to be objective despite these relationships.
agree with phoneboy
I think we’ve covered this enough! Just a last thought or two. I agree with Gregory’s agreement with Phoneboy if he’s referring to his very last point - just coz you’re getting paid doesn’t mean you’re biased. A professional knows how to do this right - write about the good and the bad and show balance. Readers will respect that and won’t care if the writer has been paid or not by the company in question. It’s equally easy to tell when a writer is being too rah-rah, and then you really have to wonder if they’re being paid. That’s where I have a problem with blogs because it’s so wild west and there’s so little disclosure about the writers or what’s driving the content. Enough.
Just one more thought on the last round of comments. Regarding journalists, they’re getting paid by publishers, not vendors. That’s their job - they get paid to write about the news. Blogging isn’t a job, and in most cases where money is involved, it’s for a specific post. That’s a completely different situation and because it’s so unusual, that’s why disclosure is needed. Unfortunately, bloggers don’t generally have a moral obligation to their readers, especially since readers aren’t paying to get the content.
Blogging networks are different species altogether - understood. It’s the new journalism, and if it’s done right - including proper disclosure - then it’s every bit as credible as traditional journalism.
Time to stop and move on. This debate is healthy - and needed - because we’re all struggling with basic issues like trust, integrity, objectivity, accuracy, fairness, etc. - in a medium - the Net - which is far too open for abuses around freedom of speech that traditional media has worked so hard to nurture, respect and protect.