Snappy the Clam: Isn't extreme milk a oxymoron?

Dr Pepper in blog astroturf campaign | Metafilter

And TNLNYC? How about all the people who go to tech conferences and blog about the wonderful new toys from [insert company here], without bothering to mention that between the company-provided travel, lodging, and giveaway goodies they've received between hundreds and thousands of dollars for their "unbiased" opinion? (I especially love it when those same people talk about how much more independent and trustworthy they are than traditional journalists.) Anyone who thinks Dr. Pepper is the first company to use blogs for marketing hasn't been paying attention.

Exactly what I've been saying all along, probably better put. Most if not all of the BigTechBlogs need to get the (b)logs out of their eyes.

Look, blogs are becoming commercial. There's no getting around it. Advertising will subvert and adapt anything it can find for the purposes of capitalism. I'm not sure that anyone should be surprised at this as blogs increased in popularity. Wasn't one of the purposes of Pyra to find a commercial niche of weblogs by repurposing them as a corporate communications tool? (Probably even more so now given the Google deal.)

No one remembers history - there have been many such "imminent death of [insert your fave here, has been Usenet, the web, internet] predicted" since the Net began. The end of the no commercial use policy, the AOL arrival, banner ads, you name it. All provoked a "there goes the neighborhood, they're ruining it" hue and cry. And yet the Web still appears to be here. Is the Raging Cow site the death of weblogs? No, not at all. Is it the mainstreaming of them? Definitely. Big media is a Borg. It doesn't annihilate, it assimilates.

Snappy the Clam

Chowder is evil.

Isn't extreme milk a oxymoron?

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