Six Apart Rolls Out Sponsored “TypePad Conversations,” Your Comments Are Now Ads

Ever since this whole blog thing started to take off, marketers have been trying to horn their way into the conversation. It started out as crude pay-per-post schemes, and then evolved into more subtle "sponsored conversations" . Once Twitter and Facebook took off, some of those conversations also were for sale. It got so bad , the FTC had to get involved . Now Six Apart is launching its version of sponsored conversations, which it calls TypePad Conversations . The trick to this type of marketing is to strike a balance between creating authentic online conversations and creating advertorials. The way Six Apart is trying to strike this balance is by getting bloggers to put up posts asking their readers general questions about a topic related to the advertiser's interests. So Sprint, which is the launch advertiser, is advertising an upcoming HTC 4G phone by getting bloggers to write posts asking questions such as: "Do your kids respond better and faster when you text or call them?", "If you could connect up to 5 devices at a time using just your mobile phone, how would that change how and when you access the internet?", and "Is technology making us better or worse at communicating with each other? How so?" I fear the answer to the last question is "worse."