The world of blogging is full of advertisements. You see them here on Neowin and nearly every other site on the web. In an effort to gain more organic content, advertorials have become popular as a premium way blogs can make money by posting up sponsored content. For the most part, these campaigns are ok as long as they are marked appropriately so but a recent Microsoft campaign has backfired.
Microsoft was working with SocialChorus to promote Internet Explorer (IE) with paid postings but things went aloof when Michael Arrington was contacted to participate in the program. If you are not familiar with Arrington, he founded TechCrunch and is outspoken about many things, including paid postings. In short, he is close to the last person on Earth that you would want to contact about doing a paid promotion for anything.
Arrington had no problem airing out what SocialChorus was offering and Microsoft reacted quickly by killing the deal with the company. Microsoft said the following:
This action by a vendor is not representative of the way Microsoft works with bloggers or other members of the media. The program has been suspended.
To no surprise, Microsoft is trying to distance itself from the program and we suspect SocialChorus is rethinking about who it will contact to promote paid postings.
Back the drawing board for Microsoft on how it wants to continue to push IE, but if we have a say in it, stick to the technical showcases like this one, as they accomplish this goal much more effectively.
Source: Uncrunched
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