And now, a word from our sponsored bloggers

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Have I told you lately how much I admire The Economist magazine? For a time I even subscribed (see astonishingly low priced internet offer) which allowed me to start many a cocktail party conversations with “Well, I was just reading an interesting article about that in The Economist…”

Via The New York Times (another fine publication that I subscribe to—yes, in paper form!), comes word that the fix is in the blogosphere. When you hear bloggers go on and on about some product or restaurant or periodical, there’s a good chance that they’re getting company kickbacks or paychecks as a result. Welcome to the messy new world of online advertising.

Here’s the intro to the Times piece:

Colleen Padilla, a 33-year-old mother of two who lives in suburban Philadelphia, has reviewed newarly 1,500 products including baby clothes, microwave dinners and the Nintendo Wii, on her popular Web site Classymommy.com. Her site attracts 60,000 unique visitors every months, and Ms. Padilla attracts something else: free items from companies eager to promote their products to her readers.

Whatever you do, don’t e-mail this story to my kids, who would no doubt react by saying. “Damn, dad, you can get us a free Wii?” But what of the ethics of Classy mommy shilling for products she may or may not like in return for cash and prizes? Is the ghost of Billy Mays the least bit upset at this natural evolution in advertising? Should the government get involved in laying out formal rules as to how to make consumers aware of this sometimes secret relationship between bloggers and corporations?

And the Federal Trade Commission is taking a hard look at such practices and may soon require online media to comply with the disclosure rules under its truth-in-advertising guidelines.

Those restrictions would have to include Facebook status messages and Tweets, where advertising is also starting to take root. I guess the point to all of this is that these internets have shown themselves to be an incredible tool to directly market products to consumers. Though the question of how sites and bloggers make money is ever-changing, deciding which popular bloggers are acting ethically vis-a-vis the products they like, and which aren’t, can, for the moment, be a tricky call.

Which brings me back to The Economist…