Peer presure

Please read: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000844.html

> Please read

This has nothing to do with the article.

I think that's a fair question, Philip raised. If you're a one-person operation, as many news bloggers are, how can you proove there's no conflict of interest? No matter how you do ads, there will be *some* rule about what you can / cannot say.

Now, with AdSense, I think it's just that you can't say "go click that ad", which is only technically a rule about what you can talk about ... but there may be other rules as well.

The first rule of AdSense is – you do not talk about AdSense. The second rule of AdSense is – you DO NOT talk about AdSense.

I think keep fair is very hard. Different people, different thinking.

Which is right? Just let the money say.

For some product or service, if I feel bad, I will try to give the kind advice to the advertisers, and on the blog, also I will try to not hurt them.

Business is business, the advertisers give me money, I should try to do somethings useful for them. Valuable advice can make both win.

Fix the mistake and make new chance.

> and on the blog, also I will try to not hurt them.

And that's the potential conflict of interest over which Harry McCracken quit his job.

> Now, with AdSense, I think it's just that you can't
> say "go click that ad", which is only technically a
> rule about what you can talk about ... but there
> may be other rules as well.

I think the randomness of AdSense, or other types of ads based on "heavy rotation" of different advertisers in one spot, provides the least potential for conflict of interest. These ads aren't picked by the blogger so there was no direct communication with the advertiser. Another reason why more advertisers are better is that they may cancel out different interests, so to speak.

So as readers should we be afraid of believing any reviews that are now printed in PC World's magazine? They might not be honest about the products they review because they get advertising dollars from the same companies who produce those products.

I think we should be critical towards/ careful about any news medium (blog, traditional news, PC World) and acknowledge there's always potential for conflict. But in this specific case, PC World might also get advertising dollars from *competing* companies. And then, a positive review would hurt advertiser A, and a negative review would hurt advertiser B, creating potential for balance.

What really happens behind the scenes though is hard to tell. I've heard this from a journalist who works for a large German IT publisher: some advertisers will argue that if a product is not reviewed, then apparently their ads won't be a fit for the magazne, because the mag has a different target group. In other words: you don't review our product, and we'll cancel our ads, and we even have a "completely logical" non-blackmail reasoning behind it :)

Colin C.

>They might not be honest about the products they review because they get advertising dollars.

News is just some power drived. In China, we have the special way to read news. We not believe news anymore. We always try to read the motive hidden in the words.

As the new PC World CEO was the CEO of Mac World, this sends a strong message about any reviews made in Mac World.

(Updated the post with a statement by Colin Crawford.)

Fom Colin Crawford post .. he sez .."PC World, has not been nor will it be influenced by advisers’ pressure."

Did he mean "advertisers" or "advisers"...there is a big difference between these two words..!!

What I notice is that the blog post says the resignation was prompted by pressure <em>not to criticize</em> advertisers, exerted <em>by the business side of the publication</em>.

What Crawford denies is that pressure was exerted <em>to praise</em> advertisers <em>by the advertisers themselves</em>. He carefully avoids denying the actual charge made; he just denies something similar to it but that is not what is claimed actually happened. (He even avoids denying that he himself exerted any pressure!)

The article:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130994-c,macs/article.html

It seems that Harry McCracken is now back at PC World as vice-president, editor in chief. Colin Crawford is no longer CEO of PC World and will be focusing on IDG's online strategy.

Article at Yahoo News:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070509/tc_pcworld/131702;_ylt=Al_zXxwuWGEWBVQvHESn9U_MWM0F

Post at PC World:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131702-page,1/article.html#

Why?