FTC regulations on blogger payola and freebies went into effect today, and bloggers have gotten busy disclosing their "material connections" to the people and companies they write about. Most of what's been disclosed is small-time, slapdash or downright stress inducing.
Starting tomorrow, new FTC regulations require bloggers to disclose when they accept cash or freebies for posts. Appropriately enough, fameball queen Julia Allison is leading this coming wave of embarrassing confessionals, with a disclosure about her insides.
Dumenco: Nikki Finke offers Hollywood the thrill "of seeing a spun reporter do as told."
It may seem crass to put a pricetag on a human life. But you never know when a brand-name blogger like Matt Drudge or Perez Hilton might be tragically killed. Luckily, 24/7 Wall Street has calculated the economic loss.
Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke has always been cagey about her Web traffic. But having sold her website, the stabby gossipmonger can't keep her numbers private any longer. All she can do is try and push them up. Which we'd recommend.
Hollywood's screaming shut-in Nikki Finke is making waves in her own bathtub this morning with a fresh new look — which bears a striking resemblance to the old look — and promises of the imminent roll-out of a worldwide network.
Matt Mullenweg should be proud; his giant WordPress.com has reportedly earned him millions. But his blog-platform rival, Tumblr founder David Karp, just surpassed him in one key metric. Mullenweg can blame Brooklyn one-upsmanship.
Shilling has never looked more attractive: Amid an old-media depression, "sponsored" blogging company Izea thinks it can get you around $1 per character to sell out on Twitter.
Julie Powell blogged her way through cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking; a book deal and movie followed. Are food bloggers thrilled for her? Hardly; Powell is a foodie infidel who must be stopped.
The Huffington Post just hired another VIP's child, this one the son of White House senior adviser David Axelrod. Funny how a website famous for not paying bloggers finds room on the payroll for an undistinguished corps of rich kids.
A leading goal at the annual BlogHer conference is "economic empowerment" for female bloggers. For some participants, this means ample freebies; for at least one, it meant the chance to shake a company down for free shoes.
These are desperate times for newspapers. Experimentation abounds. For the San Francisco Chronicle this means trying to charge for their fancy (but relatively cheap to duplicate) columnists and giving away less-glamorous (but expensive) reporting.
Sure, Marc Andreessen is now helming a $300 million investment fund, but where is the Netscape co-founder investing his own money? On that surefire moneymaker, professional blogging.
Fake Steve Jobs is back. Dan Lyons, author of the piercingly funny satire blog, insists his return may be temporary. But he wouldn't be having this much fun with Jobs' illness if he still worried about the Apple CEO's death.
Ever feel like Twitter is just too, well, free? A new company allows you to pay for select tweets. To prove this is a terrible idea, fallen loudmouth banker Tim Sykes has jumped on board.
The Huffington Post has been taking flack for not paying writers, but it's not so simple. Most bloggers aren't paid, but some are. On staff, there are paid interns, unpaid interns, and paying interns. It's all very complicated, but luckily we made you a chart.
Tech blog company GigaOm is starting a subscription research service to drum up cash; some think TechCrunch could soon follow. It would seem everything old in tech media is new again: Bloated dot-com magazines attempted this same tactic amid the popping of the last financial bubble.
Julia Allison was paid in cash to blog about her trip Sea World, the "lifecasting" celebrity wannabe has belatedly disclosed. So how have the first few days of the trip gone? Allison, who announced her trip with five exclamation marks, seems belatedly conflicted.
Julia Allison sounds so excited: The professional "lifecaster" is headed for "an adventure" at Sea World. As it happens, she's also showing other bloggers how not to make money in a recession.
Give the newspaper bosses this much: In their desperation to fix their dying businesses, they are going after logical targets. Google's rise has exactly nothing to do with their fall — but Google has money.
