Rory Cellan-Jones of BBC writes: I met a company which boasted of employing what they called a “digital marketing consultant” to hang out in the blogosphere spreading the word about their company. Then a friend dropped by and told me about his new business – writing blog posts for corporate executives too busy or inarticulate to do it themselves. And finally I’ve been hearing about the eagerness of some bloggers to accept freebies and trips from big companies.

In summary we’ve got bloggers switching seamlessly between personal and corporate roles, we’ve got blogs which might seem personal but are written by someone else, and we’ve “independent” technology bloggers who are happy for the technology firms to pick up the tab for their trips. I know, I know, many of you will say this has all been happening for years, and the mainstream media are just as guilty of conflicts of interest. But there’s still a tendency to see the blogosphere as wonderfully authentic and free of spin compared with the old media. Is it? Link.