The notion of being paid to openly write about a product should irritate me, since the concept is so anti-marketing. It's a virtually uncontrolled, yet coordinated, marketing effort. Blogging for economic capital vs. social capital? Personally, I don't make too much of a distinction.

Take this scenario: I meet you in public, we talk about your product or service, and if I believe in your product or ideas, I'll blog about you and will be going on the record as a vocal supporter. The opportunity exists for a potential payoff down the road. Note: this isn't a catch-all, by the way. It's not an absolute to say that everything I might write about has an ulterior motive. For example, think of people who blog favorably about Apple.

Getting paid to blog about products might be controversial if I didn't view it as getting paid for my time and blog real estate, for products I think might have some relevancy to my viewership and listenership. This whole Marqui thing that no one is pointing out? It's about a content management product! Uh, HELLO? BLOGOSPHERE? CAN YOU HEAR THE IRONY? (I should be audioblogging this so you can hear the dripping sarcasm.)

If Marc Canter came to me with a similar proposal for the online auction space (space! space! space!), I'd briefly introduce the concept on ericrice.com, and point people to my other publishing project for the eBay economy. Say it with me. RELEVANCY

This is nothing more than a basic (and slightly odd, yet effective) sponsorship campaign. Normally, we can't talk about our sponsors. And if we do, it HAS to be all rosy! We WANT dissent! Why do you think Scoble has such appeal? Is it because he's blowing a pocket full of Microsoft Sunshine (1.0) up our ass? Of course not! He dissents from time to time. We value that.

Stowe Boyd has even put the blog shill label on a couple of us. Okay, fine.

Take a look at the some of the names that will be (or are) emerging in this project. Not idiots. Not whores. Hey, some might look hot in fishnets and Stilettos.

And I'm one of them.

See ya at da club, baby.