Advertisers are willing to pay bloggers who write about their website, products or services.
And the model has been immensely successful in the blogging circles. PayPerPost alone has an army of 15,500 bloggers who are open to writing sponsored posts on their blogs.
Today, Blogging Guru Darren Rowse has asked an interesting and a very relevant question on his blog - Do You Read Paid Review Posts?
The story is flooded with comments and a huge majority of readers have admitted that they don't read blog posts that have been paid for. Some of Darren's readers have completely dropped blogs from their RSS readers that accept sponsored reviews.
It clearly indicates that sponsored posts may help in bringing more backlinks for advertisers but not for the blogger who's writing them. And paid blogging could backfire in some cases as readers, already struggling with RSS Information Overload, may unsubscribe from your blog forever.
What is your take on sponsored posts ? Do you read stories for which the blogger was paid money by the advertiser ?
To be honest, I don't like reading paid reviews. It's OK if a blogger is writing sponsored posts once in a while but if he's doing that too often, I unsubscribe from that blog altogether.
Related: Paid Blogging Could Harm Your Google Rank
In LA Times, Jason Calacanis says "PayPerPost versus authentic blogging is like comparing prostitution with making love to someone you care for deeply."