Edited to add: You can now Digg this post!

I was interviewed by Forbes last week for an article about PayPerPost. I didn’t know at the time about the $7 million that PayPerPost was getting in funding, but now I see why Forbes was hot to get this published. I am surprised that I didn’t hear from the “fact checkers” that the reporter said would be calling me, and given the two big errors I found in his article, he could have used their services. I could tell over the phone that the reporter would be spinning his article a certain way, and I wasn’t surprised tonight when I saw the link in my site stats.

Anyway, the article is up now on Forbes.com – PayPerPost Gets Paid, Again.

I’m knew something was up when the reporter, David Gelles, called me today to specifically ask me about this debt consolidation entry I wrote up last week. Yes, I was paid for linking to that specific debt consolidation website. I even pointed out to Mr. Gelles on the phone today that I’ve BEEN through credit counseling, and I took the opp so that I could let people know it CAN help! But the reporter says:

Simplekindoflife.com, for example, which recommended a site called DebtHelp.com, a credit counseling company, as having ”tons of great info.” Trouble is, the blogger pushing the site had never even used the company but was getting paid to flack it. (”I don’t think I’m selling my soul,” she says.)

I’m sorry, when did my opinion become less valid? Did Mr. Gelles sign up as an advertiser or blogger of PayPerPost to give HIS review? I think not. He looked at the information presented, and formed an opinion. I did the same thing when I reviewed DebtHelp.com – so why is MY opinion less valid than his? If anything, because I’ve been through debt consolidation, my opinion is MORE valid, because I have been there, done that. I spent an hour looking over this website and reading the articles when I reviewed it, and I agreed and liked a lot of what I saw. Yes, if I hadn’t been paid for it, I probably would have never have linked to this site. Why? Well duh, I’m not in debt, so I don’t typically go seeking out information I don’t need. But I sure as hell can recognize good articles and content when I see it! If that’s selling your soul, sign me up for the fast lane to hell!

(If the reporter HAD signed up as an advertiser, he’d have known there is no “rave” setting for opps, as he claims in the article. You can request positive, neutral, or even negative reviews only.)

In the rest of the article…well, I can’t tell if David Gelles loves PayPerPost, or if he can’t stand it. (If this was an opportunity on PayPerPost, it would definitely qualify as “neutral”!) In one paragraph he says:

Note to ‘’serious” bloggers: Stop whining.

Yet he ends the article with:

Blogees, beware.

Not exactly cut and dry, is it? He linked to another entry of mine about Hawaiian real estate:

In a recent entry advertising a Hawaiian real estate Web site, she wrote, ”You all know I’m a real estate nut, right? If the market weren’t so stinky right now, I’d be going to real estate school. Open houses and MLS listings and contacts make me hot. LOL!”

Here’s another place where David Gelles could have used a fact checker. That blog entry isn’t even a PayPerPost opportunity, and he NEVER asked me about it, specifically. He DID ask me if I use other paid blogging companies, and I said yes. If you’re writing an article about PayPerPost, you’d be doing well to highlight ONLY the entries I did specifically FOR PayPerPost! Anyway, I’m not sure what point he’s trying to make by highlighting that. Anyone that knows me in person knows that I am an self proclaimed real estate nut, and the highlight of my life was building my own home. I even worked for a builder when I was 21. Is he suggesting I’m making things up to sell something? If I were going to lie, it would be better like that – I would have come up with a fake vacation, as one PayPerPost hater suggested I did. (On an entry about a family cruise I did in 2005, someone suggested that I was paid, and made the whole thing up, simply because I didn’t name the other vacationers “by name”. Sheesh, I wish Carnival was offering me free cruises!)

One point in the article I enjoyed quite a bit was where Mr. Gelles said:

Through his own blog, BuzzMachine.com, Jarvis earns around $1,000 a month through banner advertising and affiliate programs.

Seriously? Is that it? I made double that last month through advertising only – and that doesn’t include any sponsored blog entries. I guess I really AM an A-lister, after all!

Popularity: 2% [?]