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19 October 2009 6 Comments

Payola, Extortion and Market Correction

or the last two weeks, I’ve been mulling this concept of market correction as it pertains to the web. There are a variety of stories that have been related, in addition to signatory bubble characteristics that I have observed for some time, but it’s all coming into a lot more focus as time has gone on.

A market correction is an economic term describes a natural occurrence when a certain market sector becomes “over sold” or hyperinflated, or when a sector becomes irrelevant to the market and is put out of its misery, or re-capitalized. It is a “coming to center” that occurs naturally when there is an imbalance in the system.

We’ve seen macro-economic market corrections in the form of the housing and financial market implosion last year or the dot-com bust of the late 90s. Last year, around this time, the stock market gave up half of its value in a correction that wreaked havoc in every market sector. Even the startup market based largely in Silicon Valley felt the effects as leading venture capital firms started informing portfolio companies of looming doomsday scenarios. More after the jump.

22 June 2009 12 Comments

FTC to Close Loopholes in Blogger-Marketer Relationships

Late last night, I came across an AP article that indicated a long awaited smackdown was coming from the FTC regarding paid reviews on blogs. Digging deeper into the article, it seems that the issue is not so much paid reviews as it is proper disclosure and verifiable claims.

In the blog world, we are subject to increasing amounts of “freebies”, particularly as our individual or demographic influence grows stronger. Companies want to get involved and get bloggers on their side, spouting their reviews and influencing opinion.

8 June 2009 10 Comments

Technosailor.com Review and Disclosure Policy

At Technosailor.com, we rarely do product or software reviews. Instead, it’s all about the actual benefit that comes to the business owner or entrepreneur from the product or service. Usually, it takes time for benefits or problems to come out. Though I am personally an early adopter of many technologies, I limit the number of [...]

6 October 2008 2 Comments

“Citizen Journalism” — a label for recklessness that has to go.

Cheap video and still digital cameras, broadband, and the advent of blogging have brought about this idea of “citizen journalism,” presumably to report the “real” stories that get ignored by “mainstream media.” Many bloggers have assumed this mantle of “citizen journalist,” and some sites like The Uptake have embraced the idea of publishing firsthand reporting by Joe Sixpack, as Sarah Palin would say. This has acquired the “citizen journalism” title. Some sites take this further, like the “collaborative journalism” of NowPublic. CNN has had an “iReport” site that posts “citizen journalists’” clips, reports, and other snippets.