Congrats and best of luck on starting this. I read your piece each week and will look forward to reading you blog.

Jon,

I find your recent "blog" interesting, but extremely misdirected. You are wise to delve into the next generation of revenue based advertising, whether or not it is a pay for post model. Pay Per Click revolutionized advertising and access, by business and individuals small and large. It has provided them the ability to get their product or service message out to the masses with efficiency. And this is where your post falls short. You fail to recognize any good in your recent rant. There are dishonest members of every group, but here you've vilified agencies, advertisers and bloggers alike without even the presentation of a fact pattern to justify your rationale.

You treat bloggers as wholly dishonest and unethical because they do not all report their income trail. At no time did you unearth a dishonest blogger who lied and was paid to do so. At no time did you present evidence that an agency had even asked a blogger to lie or misrepresent the truth. Yet you have generalized to the point that proves you clearly had an agenda when writing the piece. Perhaps you are some kind of Republican Congressional Watch Dog preparing for a subcommittee hearing on blogs - just what we all need. Do you believe that Doctors who take advantage of a free lunch from a pharmaceutical rep and then later prescribe Viagra should disclose lunch to their patient? Do you think that all elected officials are dishonest because they don't openly share their calendar of appointments with lobbyists and special interest prior to engaging with the public in a sound bite? You are doing a disservice to majority of bloggers who are honest and candid in their feedback, regardless if they drive a certain type of automobile, use a specific type of shampoo or have a certain type of mobile phone service.

While I disagree with Ted Murphy's comments about not being able to believe what you see on tv - you should know better than to leverage blatant hyperbole to create an uproar - that's the responsibility of Fox News. Do you think any agency would have provided you access for your piece if you did not offer Business Week exposure? Are you unethical because you do not regularly expose your audience to the ways many "journalists" find their way into stories or gain access to news info? Many bloggers blog to gain exposure and grow readership - no different than your publication. Your magazine and many others sells subscriptions at a fraction of the true costs - currently a 2 year brand new subscription to your top rate publication can be had for 99 cents on ebay - no joke - check it out for yourself at http://cgi.ebay.com/Business-Week-2-year-subscription-0-S-H-NR_W0QQitemZ140003269882QQihZ004QQcategoryZ82142QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem . Do you tell your paying readers why the magazine adopts these tactics to inflate circulation and meet rate card expectations? You're falsely delivering a readership number, much like Enron or Worldcom falsely delivered many little details.

Rather than releasing so-called pollution on your readers, you should perhaps take a look at your own agenda and its merits. You may be surprised, but then again "We can't believe anything we read in Jon Fine's blog either".

Best,
David