PayPerPost in? I want out.

It doesn't bother me. Performancing indicated that it was looking to sell the metrics tools some months back. PPP bought. Anyone could have bought the technology.

As I understand it this is not a partnership between the two companies but an asset sale from Performancing to PPP.

Getting upset at Performancing is kind of like getting mad at a used car dealer when they sell a car to someone you dislike. Its a one time transaction . . .

I had heard some indications that the brand and possibly the website were included in the sale, but had not seen anything explicitly stating that as of yet. I would stand slightly corrected if that is correct.

I am completely familiar with the FTC ruling, which was a non-ruling in fact stating that the FTC would take no action against a fortune 500 company for generating buzz by hiring teenagers to create buzz about their products.

The FTC did indicate that their current rules seemed to cover buzz generation when paid and that did impact PPP's operating model, which has recently pushed them to require all buzz articles should be disclosed completely.

So in reality, the FTC has waffled politically and chosen not to act against billion dollar companies breaking their rules, while a company with a value of a few million has run a course of entering this market in the grey zone and moving to the white zone in less than 6 months.

Its your information at stake, so I am not trying to convince or disuade you from taking steps as you see fit.

But personally I do not see this as a big issue at all. Just my opinion. A sale is a sale, and again anyone could have bought it regardless of how much was actually sold.

Ads have been on the internet for a long time, but internet companies have been buying and selling each other technologies and domains for a lot longer. If this allows the current Performancing Team to follow their muse, focus their energies, pull in some funding and do it better than before, then I say more power to them, and in the meantime I thank them for their free service that they have provided us some 28k bloggers for quite some time. Happy New Year! :)

Sorry I missed your comment on Nick's blog until after my last reply, and just got caught up on Nick's comment trail. Didn't mean to be redundant about the free service, but I do see it as a valid point regardless of who would have, should have, or could have paid for it.

I think the pay issues is probably a moot point now anyway. Performancing didn't make money off of the tool and maybe they could have.

Regarding Yahoo, I'm sure they can easily recreate the metrics solution in house anytime they like, its not something that a company of that size really needs to buy at all, as opposed to a smaller start up like PPP or possibly one of its competitors that would have a valid reason to apply a tool like that in attempting to value a blogs worth to link advertising revenue rates back to a blog.

I think the how to post is up in Nick's blog now also. Basically, you only need to edit your profile and the traces will be removed.

From an ethical perspective, small startups that trip and stumble along the way sometimes bother me less than fortune 500 companies like Yahoo! that make more serious ethical breaches. If an ant steps on my toe, I don't feel it, but if an elephant steps on my toe, the result is much more serious.

These companies have a lot of room to grow and learn and chart their course and hopefully tac towards the sun. I will give them the benefit of the doubt that they will learn their way.

I guess I can leave it at the idea that I will agree to disagree with you, but I think we are coming at this from tangential perspectives. :)