KATE KRIEGER

                Casey Acierno

n September, a blog emerged to counter the plethora of anti-Wal-Mart blogs. Wal-Marting across America's presence was quiet at first, but the blog quickly began popping up in Google searches as a positive counterpoint to the frequently negative use of the term "Wal-Marting" (coined by Business Week to describe the way in which chains like Wal-Mart drive out smaller competitors). According to the site's profile, a couple, Laura and Jim, were traveling across the country in their RV and stopping at Wal-Marts along the way. Surprisingly enough, every Wal-Mart employee they met was well paid and fulfilled by his career choice.

On Oct. 3, Associate Professor Jonathan Rees of Colorado State posted an open letter to Jim and Laura on Writing on the Wal, an anti-Wal-Mart blog, in which he pointed out that they were sponsored by Working Families for Wal-Mart, who is in turn sponsored by Wal-Mart. He wrote: "If you do exist, how much is Edelman (Wal-Mart's PR firm) paying you to do this?" However much it was, it's clear that the publicity would've been worth it, with quotations from the blog in Business Week's article on the scandal, like, "Cragg feels his Wal-Mart's health insurance is a life saver... literally." The blog lasted less than a week before its exposure.

Wal-Marting across America's last post is a petulant defense against its criticisms. "So now we're being attacked. Why?" Laura asks. Well, it's easy to think of a few reasons: not disclosing a financial arrangement that might color readers' opinions, or refusing to own up to the problematic nature of their sponsorship. Laura comes to a different conclusion: "Because we dared to write positive things about Wal-Mart." Maybe certain anti-Wal-Mart groups would've reacted no matter what the situation was among Wal-Mart, Edelman, and Jim and Laura. But obviously, if they had been writing about how they genuinely felt without outside assistance, it would be a different story. Once money enters the picture, the average reader can't help but wonder where exactly Jim and Laura's opinions come from.

Wal-Mart isn't the only corporation using blogs as a covert marketing tool. To promote its Monopoly competition, McDonald's created two blogs, one purportedly by the 2004 winner, Marcia Schroeder, and the other by an obsessive fan. Soon Consumerist, a consumer-oriented blog owned by Gawker Media, revealed that a public relations firm created "Stanley Smith," the obsessed fan. Although the agency claims that all writing on Schroeder's blog was her own, the blog ended less than a day after "Smith's" being exposed, which coincided with the conclusion of the game. McDonald's declined to comment to Consumerist.

It's not particularly surprising that Wal-Mart and McDonald's were two of the first proponents of fake blogs, or "flogs" as bloggers have tagged them. It would be difficult to find two companies that are more frequently caricatured as everything that's wrong with big business, from underpaid employees to destruction of local businesses. But now, even smaller names are dipping their toes into the blogosphere. Court TV launched a viral marketing campaign for Parco P.I., a reality show about a private investigator. The network sponsored two billboards, one in New York and one in L.A., containing a vengeful announcement of divorce from a spurned wife. Keyword searches revealed that the billboards were linked to a blog written by "Emily." Media attention quickly focused on the story behind this character. The popular New York media gossip blog Gawker commented on the story obsessively; a few days later, Gawker's readers linked the storyline of the blog to an episode in the new season of Parco P.I. The final post on the "Emily" blog, on July 30, provides an explicit connection to the show, with a reference to Vinnie Parco, private investigator, who "has a show on Court TV."

Chris Mohney, Gawker's managing editor, points out that even though Gawker applied its rote snarkiness to the viral marketing campaign, there's something to be said for the maxim that any publicity is good publicity-and in fact, Parco P.I. purchased ads on Gawker following the posts. "For all I know," he says, "they played us like a violin."

Unlike the Wal-Mart and McDonald's flogs, something about this blog simultaneously seemed more legitimate (after all, why wouldn't a character on a modern television show have a blog?) and more insidious. Everything about the blog-from its pink color scheme to the blogspot.com account that anyone with an e-mail address could obtain-closely mimics any number of real personal blogs.

Unlike the traditional print media, there is no established code of ethics governing blogs. Mohney claims that, at least in Gawker's case, "if we mention something communicated to us by a publicist, it's because we're genuinely interested in it. Or we're making fun of it." However, Gothamist, another New York blog, has a history of promoting bands that, depending on whom you ask, either were managed by their arts and entertainment editor or became managed by her shortly thereafter. When Stereogum, a New York music blogger, received an influx of money from an investment firm, fellow music blogger BrooklynVegan said, "Stereogum worked hard to get where he's at and deserves to be paid for it-just like any other form of media. I'm not against it."

While consumers have grown cynical about advertising in traditional media, the democracy inherent in the Internet still holds out hope that blogs might remain untainted. That they may turn out to be no more above commercial exploitation than TV is unsettling. At the same time, we still have the power to do real investigative work. By all means, enter the blogsophere-but, as Mohney advises, "keep your bullshit detector operational and scanning."