Shouldn’t Microsoft and Federated Media at least understand why shilling is wrong for a lot of bloggers and stop trying to sell dishonesty?

Michael at Techcrunch said he doesn’t care about what he wrote for Microsoft even though he signed his name to it. Yet he signed his name for me - someone who admires and looks up to his opinions. That is why Microsoft had him do it - so I would believe in Microsoft indirectly.

This whole chain of events - Microsoft paying bloggers to write for them for this reason, Federated Media promoting the idea to their clients knowing best what the implications would be and the clients agreeing to do it - shows a major sign of laziness or a desperate need for banner ad money.

** I always assumed these ads were quotes bought from prior articles or blog posts written by the blogger, without being payed to write them **

Apparently, people who value journalistic integrity and transparecy of information are willing to write messages they don't believe in just for money, in the very same way they write on their blogs, about the same stuff, to the same people who read them, in the same space and in the same place.