Boredworkers.com

Michael Arrington (The Guy) of TechCrunch published a post entitled PayPerPost Chronicles Their Amorality trashing PPP’s latest venture RockStartup.com. On PayPerPost’s (PPP obviously) end, they put up a bounty on the article, paying bloggers to write what they think about The Guy. The post commentary itself is abuzz at the moment, making for a funny read.

It is reminiscent of a high school cafeteria food fight or a flame war. Both sides start to chuck stuff at each other but stopping short of getting themselves dirty. The people around them jump on the fun wagon simply because it is hard to resist the opportunity to throw stuff knowing the worse that could happen is that you’ll get your ass hauled off to the principle’s office. In this case, the worse that could happen is that you’ll get some nasty comments in your blog.

The irony of it all is that while everyone else is getting their hands dirty on ground zero, the main players (The Guy and PPP) who stirred things up to begin with have already moved on. It is mutual publicity after all. Neither side actually gets burned so badly that they wind up crippled. Instead, the controversy generates a buzz within a small subset of the blogosphere. Those who get caught up in the fun, spread it to their readers in a viral manner. Eventually, the dust settles and the only thing that people remember are TechCrunch and PayPerPost. The details become lost and insignificant.

Personally speaking, I like The Guy and TC in general. They’ve been a source of good information since I started reading/subscribing. I suspect that the people at PPP like him too for the coverage he provides them. Head on over. And definitely check out the the naked guy video.

I think the point is that there is no right or wrong or ethical question or any of that stuff. Half the things on the web is a false or a stretch on truth. There’s no guarantee that anything you read in the papers or see in the media is the truth. It is the often the opinion and view of one party. The story may be different if viewed from another angle. If we’re buying into the whole conspiracy theory thing, everyone’s lying. The guy in the naked video says it best. Take everything with a grain of salt and think for yourself.

Having monitored the post responses for a while, I can’t help but wonder whether people jump into the fray for the right reasons. The arguments got heated in a hurry. The title reads PayPerPost Chronicles Their Amorality. Amoral, not immoral. Does anyone even realise the difference? -.-” Reading the title literally, The Guy’s really saying that PPP’s a saint.