Science Blogs Updates Advertorial Policy

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If you look at the Pepsi Food Frontiers Blog you will see that it now says “ADVERTORIAL” along the top of the blog. My understanding is that this is temporary and more design changes may occur, but the objective is to make this sort of blog clearly distinct from regular blogs. This is a good first step.

The RSS feeds from sponsored blogs, including the Google News Feed and such, will be handled separately, and posts from the sponsored blogs in the Fire Hose feed will be marked as such (eventually, not sure if that is in place yet).

People should still send in their feedback on this.

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6 thoughts on “Science Blogs Updates Advertorial Policy

  1. So, Plan A has been scrapped and now Plan B is hastily being devised and instituted since no one at PepsiCo foresaw this PR meltdown. I deduced this since the comments on the blog were curtailed at 1:23 CST, that and that a few bloggers such as yourself are doing damage control (no insult intended, after all everyone has to make nice since Sbâ?¢ has to pay the bills or simply cease to exist. It’s a simple face /nose/spite equation)

    I’m sure Sbâ?¢ higher ups are shitting themselves in fear of Pepsi saying adios and PesiCo is a little pissed and hurt at the bad reaction across the board from teh bloggers here and everyone behind the scenes is in crisis mode. So, are they asking you Sbâ?¢ bloggers for input?

  2. As an avid reader for a hair over a year now, I’ll be sad to unsubscribe from the RSS feed the first time I see an “advertorial” post (no matter the source) winds up in my reader. But I’ll do it any way, and without hesitation.

    I hope that whoever decides what content gets piped into whichever feed I’m subscribed to figures out a way to not deliver any advertorials to me. I’m an anti-avid reader of those who would try to monetize my eyeballs.

    No hard feelings.

  3. Andrew, I assume you do not watch a TV, read a newspaper, or peruse a Discover Magazine. Ever. Because if you do that even once you are a hypocrite. And that would make me want to never read a comment by you.

  4. Greg, please isn’t there some way you can all get together and make this crap just go away? I really love what you and many other scienceblog contributors are doing. Looking at my feed I see you, PZ, Ed Brayton, William M. Connolley, and Tim Lambert, and I could name several others that I like to look at occasionally. But this is one of those “what the fuck?” moments.

    Why is Scienceblogs willingly crapping on its own brand? More pertinent to this blog perhaps is: why is Scienceblogs crapping all over some of my favorite bloggers?

    I am not rich, but how much would each of us have to donate to make this whole Pepsi nightmare go away?

  5. Irene,

    1) I seek news from none of those sources. It’s amazing how many places a person can find information without being bombarded with pressure to increase my level of consumption. OK, so, perhaps there’s one less now.

    2) The issue you’ve opted to ignore is, I’m not a scientist. While I can easily identify the editorial content portions of the various media you mentioned, I am not so able to sort out the wheat and the chaff in an “advertorial” â?? the portmanteau itself suggests what the real issue here is. Part of what makes ScienceBlogs so very valuable in the broader context of society is the comfort level lay-folk like myself have with the nature of the interests of the people who provide the information through this network. When one of the “people” (in the Citizens United sense of the word) is primarily interested in selling me stuff, the whole network takes a hit to its credibility. IMO.

    3) I really don’t share your concept of hypocrisy, and I think you should probably check the definition of that term again. There is no advertising on my blog, and never will be. Nor will I sell space to some company that would use my name/rep (as if I had a name/rep to sell…) to influence an audience that includes people who may not be able to separate the metaphorical wheat from the chaff, in the parlance of Point #2.

    4) If you disagree with me on any/all of the above, fine. I’ll check back often, but I stand by my statement that as soon as I see a post from PepsiCo delivered into my inbox (in which I strive to maintain a certain sterility), I will do what I always do……and drop the offending feed. I haven’t decided how many individual ScienceBlogs feeds I’ll take the time to resubscribe to. Lord knows it’ll be a huge pain in the ass to figure out how to get every one but The One delivered.

  6. That advertorial notice, white on a pale grey background really does not do it. It does not say in a clear and loud way – this post is different from the rest. The format is just the same and then there is just this tiny little header it would be easy to miss. Therefore its presence denigrates to a greater or lesser degree all the science blogs posted on this site.

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