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We’re back once again in the midst of the pay for blog post debate. This time, bloggers who attended CES on Panasonic’s dime are defending themselves against charges of blogola.

Chris Brogan has this to say:

The work I did with Panasonic was a blogger relations campaign. I wasn’t paid to write anything about the products. I wasn’t paid for my time. Instead, I was given some gear and some opportunities and told I could write about what I wanted to write about. It was expected that I write about CES and that if it made sense that I write about Panasonic, and I did, but beyond that, there was no quid pro quo…

From what Chris is describing, the Panasonic deal sounds a lot like the deal Nikon struck with bloggers (including yours truly) last year.

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ADWEEK’s Brian Morrissey describes the Panasonic program as

one of several undertaken by brands carving out a new take on the old notion of advertorial. Rather than relying on magazines, they are contracting with influential bloggers who bring with them their own powerful distribution networks. Rather than a long-form narrative, content is fit for the Web via blog posts, Twitter updates and  YouTube videos. And the key differentiator: instead of dictating the content to lead to a sale, brands typically keep their distance to maintain credibility.

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I suppose there is a huge difference between pay-for-post and what Panasonic is doing. And for the most part, it makes sense to me that companies would want to put their products in the hands of their most enthusiastic and well-connected fans – who for the most part in the consumer electronics world are bloggers. No surprise there.

What does bother me is the legions of bloggers. clogging up Twitter and Friendfeed with breathless nonsense about this year’s iPhone Killer / next year’s landfill stuffing. Honestly folks, don’t we have anything better to talk about?

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