Fark Sells Out. France Surrenders

Article about the blurred lines between editorial and ads.

[HughMungus]

[wired.com...]

[martinibuster]

...there is a growing trend in publishing, online and off, in which the walls between advertising and editorial are breaking down.

Why not? What's this obsession with purity, anyway?

[bcolflesh]

Their advertising page now says "Drew Curtis", instead of "Gogi Gupta":

[fark.com...]

Someone get "Drew" on the phone check his accent.

More info:

[calacanis.weblogsinc.com...]

Gogi doesn't update his site quite as quickly:

[guptamedia.com...]

[HughMungus]

Why not? What's this obsession with purity, anyway?

It's really not *that* bad of a thing to do, but:

(1) people do not like to feel like they're being tricked. I can see if the ad is "Check out these hotties" and they indicate it's an affiliate links but that's a lot different from a news article that an online newspaper is paying to be placed for the traffic.

(2) A site like Fark, that mocks the BS in the rest of the world, is one place you expect honesty from in its editorial decisions, not an honest opinion of what's worthy tempered by how much was paid.

[RobinL]

If your a content site, I totally think that this is incredibly unethical. Journalists scream bloody murder whenever the lines get blurred, as they should. Your readers entrust you to make quality recomendations for them, if you're being influenced with $$$$ to change those recomendations then your no longer recomending in their best interest. Rather your recomending in the best interest of your bottom line. Advertorials disgust me. Advertising should be clearly labeled as such. I have the same feeling with ads which turn certain words on an article into advertising links, like Forbes.com is doing.