100 Slaves 100 Enemies

I once had the opportunity to take on a “writing” job. The job, I discovered, would involve writing blog posts and web site comments that promoted products that the company was hired to promote — without identifying yourself as an advertising hack; rather you were just a regular guy or girl giving your opinion. Not that it’s surprising that advertising companies would do this, I just found it morally corrupt.

Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission agrees with me. According to this post by PR Watch:

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) “may soon require online media to comply with disclosure rules under its truth-in-advertising guidelines.” FTC assistant director Richard Cleland said, “Consumers have a right to know when they’re being pitched a product.”

The problem? With companies like Izea who have matched 25,000 advertisers with 265,000 bloggers, it’s going to be hard for the FTC to regulate.

I was a big fan of Break Room Live … for two days. Last week, after I picked up Eric Bogosian’s great book Perforated Heart, I was hunting for audio interviews I could listen to at work. At the top of the Google list was a video interview between Marc Maron and Bogosian. Awesome! I thought to myself.

I became a fan of Maron’s a year or two ago after I learned about him through his performance with Henry Rollins and Janeane Garafolo. I never saw the performance, but Rollins would talk about him, I found Maron’s site, watched some of his clips and then bought his two CDs, which were great. The spirit of Bill Hicks lives! I thought to myself.

And now, through the Bogosian interview I find that Maron has a show with Sam Seder, who I don’t know anything about. I think he had a show with Garafolo. Awesome! I thought to myself.

A cool show I can listen to at work. And interesting too in that they did a live internet broadcast Monday through Friday at 3pm where you could watch the show and then interact with Maron and Seder through IMs. They’d read your message and then respond to it on air. What a great idea! I can’t wait to start listening to this on a regular basis! I thought to myself.

And then I get to the second live show only to have Maron and Seder announce that this was it. No more Break Room Live. Air America Radio was pulling the plug; management saying they couldn’t afford it anymore. Of course, how ironic. They’re broadcasting out of the break room. Would Broom Closet Live been any cheaper? Sad! I thought to myself.

My Maron Radar will be attuned to whatever crackpot scheme he comes up with next.

Coming soon: a review of Perforated Heart.