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PayPerPost Secures $10M Prepares Launch of "Argus"

posted on September 4, 2007


image While Marketing Pilgrim has never accepted direct payment for a blog post review, it seems enough other bloggers have done so to convince investors to plough $10 million into PayPerPost.

The Orlando Sentinel covers the story and provides a good recap of the company’s stormy launch–when it didn’t insist on blogging disclosures–its growth to 50,000 bloggers, and its constant criticism by TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington.

Interestingly, the adage “all publicity is good publicity” seems to be true for PayPerPost.

There’s no question the negative publicity helped the company. The popular technology blog TechCrunch, with more than 650,000 readers, has written about PayPerPost more than a dozen times. The headlines included “PayPerPost.com offers to sell your soul,” and “The PayPerPost Virus Spreads.”

Still, any other startup probably would kill for that many mentions.

“The naysayers were a godsend for the company,” said Dan Rua, a managing partner in Inflexion, a Florida investment firm funding PayPerPost.

The article mentions you can buy “positive, “neutral,” or “negative” reviews. Most opt for “neutral” but I wonder who would select “negative?” Maybe someone buying negative reviews of their competitors? That’s just evil. >:)

Lastly, they allude to a new product launching soon called “Argus” with no further details of what it is.

(Note: Not that it matters a hoot, but you should note that PayPerPost competitor SponsoredReviews is an advertiser with us.)


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  • http://www.thevanblog.com Steven Bradley

    Interesting Andy. With all the negative talk I’ve heard I’ve been under the assumption that the pay per post model was losing ground. I never would have expected to see them get funding.

  • http://www.summize.com Jay Virdy

    I was initially surprised to see some top bloggers openly advertise that they will review sites/products for $$$. I went on to read a few paid reviews and thought they were actually quite detailed and professional. My only complaint was the disclosure should have been near the top rather than the bottom of the blog. With 8,700 advertisers and 50,000 bloggers ready to write reviews, it’s not hard to convince investors you have something interesting.

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  • http://www.marketingpilgrim.com Andy Beal

    @Jay – the problem with disclosures is the same reason you’d like to see them – readers stop reading when they see a post is sponsored. ;-)

  • http://andybeard.eu/ Andy Beard

    It all depends on how good your average content is. If you don’t break the social trust with your readers, there is no problem.

    A paid post can be good enough for a front page Sphinn, and the same story was a featured article on Searchnewz.com a couple of months ago.

  • http://www.u-g-h.com Owen Cutajar

    It’s pretty impressive how far PayPerPost have come. There’s something to be said about having the right mix at the right time, and having the guts to push ahead amidst negative publicity.

    Anyway, you mention Argus, there’s more on this on PayperPost’s blog: http://community.payperpost.com/blog/2007/09/what-is-coming-.html

    Is sounds like a ground-up rewrite of PayPerPost’s blogger/advertiser marketplace based on what they’ve learnt over the last year. I could be wrong though …

  • http://symbiancorner.blogspot.com William

    I think all fair bloggers should place “review for money” near all such posts.

  • http://www.friendlydirectories.com Bidding Directory

    I’m just wondering how much you earn er motnh via payperpost? I’m using review me and i’ve earned around $40 so far.

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  • http://www.qdoos.com Buy and sell

    Whats quite sickening is that if i was a little bit less lazy i could have been at their level myself. I was there when PPP started out.

  • http://matthemattrix.ws Matt

    I know this whole paid post phenomena is quite controversial. My own attitude to it is that if you disclose that the post is paid, then that’s fine. And if you’re doing more paid posts than free ones then I think you are losing your blogging soul. (But then it’s up to the blogger him or herself to make that decision, of course.)

    What amazes me is the continuing growth of this industry. I thought this was just going to be a temporary thing that would boom until Google found a way of penalising blogs with paid posts, and/or readers got sick of it and left in droves. But it looks like neither of these things has happened — and maybe never will! — since PPP is going from strength to strength.

Filed Under: Blogging, Search Marketing