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<\/p>\nBLOGOSPHERIC HYPERPARTISANS AND CORPORATE DOLLARS<\/b><\/p>\n
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Put my hands on some unusual reading material today, the dead tree edition of Internet Retailer<\/a><\/em><\/strong>. Not normally a periodical that I would much care about, but as I flipped through, an article caught my eye:<\/p>\n “FirstStreet wins ‘ passionate customers through political blogs<\/a>“<\/p>\n The key excerpt:<\/p>\n “Mix business and politics? At first it sounded like a bad idea to Daniel Yonts, the manager of Internet marketing at TechnoBrands Inc.\u2019s firstStreet, an e-retailer of innovative products.<\/p>\n But the world of political weblogs beckoned with new web territory populated with a high concentration of Baby Boomers and \u201cactive seniors,\u201d two of firstStreet\u2019s most sought-after groups of consumers. And when you\u2019re a retailer that specializes in selling unusual and innovative products\u2014like atomic watches, battery-operated refrigerators on wheels for outdoor patios, and \u201cindependent living\u201d devices that can make life easier for aging Boomers\u2014it makes sense to take innovative steps in marketing, too, Yonts says.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first, I was leary of alienating any of our customers who may be of one political persuasion or another,\u201d Yonts says. But after running ads on blogs like the Right\u2019s DanielPipes.org<\/span> <\/a>and the Left\u2019s DavidCorn.com<\/a><\/span>, Yonts realized that while the blogs produced new customers, he also could engage the few complainers in positive e-mail communications that resulted in helpful insights on consumer interests.<\/p>\n \u201cI point out that firstStreet advertises on blogs from the Left, Right and Center of the political spectrum equally,\u201d Yonts says. \u201cWhat started out with a disgruntled customer calling us \u2018Communists\u2019 or \u2018Right-Wingers\u2019 settled into incredibly civil and interesting conversations.\u201d <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n I bet.<\/p>\n Being a good capitalist, I have no ethical problem with bloggers getting advertising dollars for their writing, even crypto-socialist lefties who normally abhor corporate America. But longitudinally, this article sparks some questions:<\/p>\n If the ad revenue ever becomes significant, “real money” as it were, will the lively extremes of opinion and idiosyncratic style for which the blogosphere is noted become homogenized ?<\/p>\n Or, will ” real money” temptations drive bloggers, especially popular ones, to go to even greater levels of polarization and demonizing rhetoric ?<\/p>\n What will “moderate” ( I mean tempermentally as well as politically) do if this situation develops ? It is hardly healthy that the feedback loop that is forming is a dynamic to reward the most irresponsible behavior by the bloggers with the deepest influence.<\/p>\n Thoughts ?<\/p>\n CONCEPTUALLY RELATED LINKS:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n “PROPAGANDA WARS<\/a>” by John Robb<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n “Hyper-Politicization<\/a>” thread at the Small Wars Council<\/a><\/strong>. Pay particular attention to the comments by Selil <\/strong>and marct.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BLOGOSPHERIC HYPERPARTISANS AND CORPORATE DOLLARS Put my hands on some unusual reading material today, the dead tree edition of Internet Retailer. Not normally a periodical that I would much care about, but as I flipped through, an article caught my eye: “FirstStreet wins ‘ passionate customers through political blogs“ The key excerpt: “Mix business and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}