Business Blog

I found this a few minutes ago, thought it was an interesting story about Coke using bloggers and paid blog posting to promote a new product:

Last Thursday (July 3rd), Coca Cola Brazil launched the drink i9 – Hidrotonico, the Brazilian version of Powerade. As a part of the i9 marketing strategy in blogs & social media, Coca Cola handpicked 9 prominent bloggers, custom made their homepage and gifted them a fancy USB mini fridge with the new product to be tested – a reason to blog about.

What I found kind of funny was the blogger manifesto:

“A blog is a personal page, is a time logbook, is expression, is someone saying what they think/reckon/believe for those who want to read it. There aren’t bloggers’ union, wages, holidays, but we do lots of overtime. A blogger is not a journalist or an advertising agent: they can be everything and nothing, teenager or mother, hairdresser or CEO. Each one has the audience they deserve, the credibility they have conquered.”

Yeah… But…

Let’s face it folks. Almost every blog out there has a monetary purpose. It would be great to think, in a perfect world, that all blogs were there solely for expression and informational reasons. But let’s be real about this. Most people put up a website for one reason. To make money.

I know, I’m going to get emails from the blogosphere purists that will tell me they don’t have one single advertisement on their blog. But they too are in it for monetary reasons for the most part. They might want to become some sort of famous journalist, or get a job as a writer because they are well known. But really boys and girls. How many of them are living in a shack in Alaska, growing their own food and writing their prose for the good of humanity?

Nope. Hosting bills have to be paid. Blogs are just websites. And websites are just ads. Sorry, but if you dig deep down, you’ll see that it’s true.

Don’t agree? Post a comment, let’s chat about it.

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