An interesting conversation is slowly starting from the WSJ article this week that discussed “blogola” – that’s the funky new term for the emerging practice of giving free stuff (from tote bags to travel junkets) to bloggers, in return for a sympathetic review.

It was bound to happen.  It happens with every emerging media channel.  Radio DJs were bribed to play new records on heavy rotations.  Journalists have always been wooed with whispered promises of “access” to newsmakers & celebrities. 

Inevitably, ethics guidelines spring up to dash such behaviors.  But it will be harder to police such activities in the blogosphere.

The difference is the complete lack of organization. 

It makes perfect sense for Gawker Media to have “some sort of policy” about blogola: Gawker maintains a network of “professional” blogs; it is centrally owned and controlled.  The Gawker writers are basically journalists – cheekier-than-thou, sure, but still bound to ethical guidelines.

But 99% of today’s bloggers are essentially hobbyists.  Passionate, evangelical, funny, and maybe even making some decent money at it – but they are still freelancing.  No one owns them.  No one tells them what to do.  The only ethical guidelines they need to adhere to are the ones that their own mommies taught them.

This is a particularly complex issue.  As the WSJ stated, “blogs are important because they often serve as idea farms for professional reporters.” 

Marketers thus have an opportunity to “influence the influencers of the influencers” … and, in this nascent period, such bloggers are probably going to be pretty easy to impress.  Who wouldn’t love to get a free camera, or an all-expenses-paid trip to meet a Hollywood star, or to make some extra cash??

By the way, is it so bad?  It’s hard for me to begrudge a workaday blogger who’s been willing and able to turn their private passion into an influential public forum, while holding down a real-life job. 

Similarly, what’s cool about bloggers is that they can be loose cannons: you could give a blogger a million bucks and they still might flip the bird at your product or brand … Blogger Relations, and blogola in particular, is risky.

So, is “blogola” good or bad?  Neither.  It all boils down to transparency. 

As long as the blogger is clear about what they’ve received (in any and all subsequent posts about the topic), it is up to the informed reader to decide whether their opinion has been swayed. 

If the product in question sucks, no number of happy-face blog postings will convince anyone otherwise. 

If the bloggers’ audience reacts disdainfully to their happy-face posts; call the blogger a “sell-out;” delete the RSS feed – then the respectable blogger will soon form their own ethics policy.

Everybody loves free stuff.

But nobody wants to be called a sucker.

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