A member of a social media site I frequent posted an interesting link to a "Vote for Hillary" blog. It was hosted on the free Blogspot platform, and actually included a post in which they were offering people $1.00 for posting positive comments about Hillary on other blogs. Shameless? Very much so. It's a sign that someone believes influencing the comments in the blogoshpere can help shape the vote. It's like a sort of "subliminal blog messaging". It's amazing the way technology is playing into this 2008 election, but this is a low. Here's a look at their offer:
But enough about that, you want to know about getting paid to write positive comments about Hillary. The way it works is this: in your spare time, you visit several political blogs. Whether they're for a specific candidate, undecided, or even a downright Hillary hater, your job is to post comments that portray Hillary in a good light. Each time you post a comment like this, make a note of the website's address in a text file (we recommend notepad). After a day's worth of blog commenting, send us an e-mail with that notepad file including all of the blogs you commented on. We will then visit a few of them to confirm you in fact leave the comments (Sorry folks, but there's always going to be someone out there wanting something for nothing). We will then pay you $1.00 per positive Hillary comment.
The blog went on to give you tips on how to comment positively about Hillary on blogs. They have a number of other posts including news about the Clinton campaign. The blog also is running Adsense ads, but down below the fold. It would be interesting to know if they made any extra revenue on this sort of blog. Anyways, that was their offer back in November, $1 per positive blog comment.
Then, on December 19th, this heartbreaking announcement came:
We have a lot of good people in this movement and most of you are good honest hardworking people. But we have been misled. Hillary is not the candidate to turn back America, she will keep us moving in the wrong direction that will most certainly turn to disaster.
We are not going to endorse a different candidate at this time, but we are calling off all support for Hillary Clinton. This was a very difficult decision and we hope you understand.
This is a definite example of the types of make money online concepts to watch out for. I'm not here to bash Hillary or try to boost any other candidate, because this isn't a political blog. But the question now becomes, based on their change of heart, will they be paying people to post newer, more truthful comments about Hillary?
(Note: I'm the Monetizer, and I approve this blog post.)
