Trusted Mom or Sellout?

I started The Daily Fuss to offer my experience as a mom and superconsumer and to help readers navigate the often confusing and expensive waters of parenthood, life and the stuff that comes with it. I'm not crazy about lumping us all into one "Mommy-Blogger" category. In fact, I see a few rather distinct factions of Mommy-Bloggers. It will be interesting to see how this landscape morphs over the coming years. The Daily Fuss operates on a firm set of principles (Fuss Principles) - the main goal of which is to deliver valuable content to its readers. Content is king and the integrity piece is at the crux of whether a site will be a success or fizzle out.

Jennifer Freeman http://blog.thedailyfuss.com

By no means I have a problem with anyone making money with a blog. But why not be honest about it and say so?
Instead many just don't see anything wrong with camouflaging reviews of things they have never laid hands on as personal experience and recommendation. They refer to Disclosure policy links on their site, that they either don't adhere to, or that are so sleazy that they basically state, that they may or may not be paid and that there generally might be some money involved in forming their opinions. As shortsighted as that is - the correctly intervening FTC should also target the other side of the coin - the sites that solicit these god awful camo spam activities. They actively encourage bloggers NOT to disclose and are major contributors in running the enormous potential that individual blogging has, into the ground.

p.s. (my comment was the first one, way down at the bottom) feel free to stop by my site, where i, too, am giving away nothing!
http://www.pajamasandcoffee.com/

Good! I have little respect for those so-called "real" mommy bloggers who p*imp out their blogs to sponsors or are constantly asking you to click here or there to read some other article they were paid for writing. Enough with the in-your-face ads, giveaways and BlogHer dominating the sidebar. Write well, be real (good grief we don't need to hear about everything "bad" you did because after awhile it makes you seem incompetent) and if you need to make money, write for one of those parent blogs.

This dumb thing! I tried and tried to leave a comment earlier, to no avail! I was so frustrated that I nearly gave up! Anyway, I wanted to say that I use my blog for some advertising purposes and I see nothing wrong with it. I use AdSense. To date, I have made $1.82 with AdSense! WooHoo! That's right! I said it! I have made less than $2 this year, with that company! I guess that's ok, when your motto is something like, "every little bit helps!" Other than that, I use my blog to plug my Etsy site. Having 7 kids and a husband who just lost his job due to the ever-failing economy leaves me in quite a spot! I have been scrambling for a while to figure out how to "get my name out there," so that someone would even see my site. I noticed a lot of ladies doing giveaways, so I made something to put on my own site. It does not always work out the way I intend, but I am completely up front about what I am hoping for. It is not that each person will just hop right over to my site and buy something either! I just want more people to know I am there.

Whew! Talk about getting wordy in the comments!

Anyway, if you get bored, check out my blog at http://sjeza5.blogspot.com ! I am currently giving NOTHING away, so you don't have to worry about getting sucked into ANYTHING!

I, too, am a mommy blogger. I have 1 step, 2 adopted and 4 bio kids! I know that raising a family can be tough! I do my best to use my blog as an outlet for many of the "happy steps" we take as a family! UGH! Normally, I wonder how my hair has stayed mostly brown for so long!

Oh, so naïve, Newsweek. If the FTC is going to come in and regulate blogging-for-kickbacks, they???re going to have to do it for the print world as well, where it has only been professional societies and writers' own sense of personal integrity that have at all had any influence in the realm of ethics. And television? Are they going to put an FTC warning on every Oprah show with a giveaway? I doubt it. Companies like Proctor and Gamble and Apple are always going to pump marketing dollars into the public sphere any way they can, whether it???s free diapers for a mommy blogger or placements of iPods in major motion pictures. The American consumer has been eating this kind of subversive commercialism up for years and they???re not going to stop now.

I too, am a MOM-blogger. I have always been suspicious of Moms who created blogs around a very specific topic to then deliberately entice product sponsors! That???s ???selling out???, wrong and inappropriate. In my case, I blog for my own therapy! I live with 2 medicated ADHD kids and an unmedicated ADHD husband. The ???H??? stands for HELL around here! My goal is to attract other Moms who can related in hopes to laugh with others as a therapy for all!
Here???s my blog;
http://imamomgetmeoutofhere.blogspot.com/

Judging from the anti-Obama trolls on here, I would guwaa that man+y corporations +just invent these so-called "real people".

they are merely hired trolls.

I think it's extremely sad that bloggers can have any sort of "cred". Anyone can have a blog, but it takes talent to be a writer.

I'm a momblogger who also consults with companies tyring to understand and reach mombloggers. I posted what amounts to a response to this article, except for the fact that it went up on my blog about 24 hours ago. http://tinyurl.com/lu6a8u

Oddly, I posted a response to your article before it was even posted here at Newsweek. http://tinyurl.com/lu6a8u Obviously this touches on a lot of hot topics in the momosphere.

The FTC isn???t targeting mommy bloggers, it does not even mention them. It is concerned with deceptive testimonials being used in advertisement, which as a consumer you should thank them for. http://su.pr/5NdqSS

Well God forbid women figure out a way to stay home with our kids and make money. While, as a journalist, I believe the separation between content and advertising should be clear (and am not a big fan of all giveaway and all review sites) I do not think the government has a right to censor capitalism. Even the Washington Post has a tough time figuring out the line between being trusted and selling out, so why blame the mommybloggers?