In the interest of accountability, this post has been retained. Please note that as of February 7th, 2007, News. Views. Common Sense. no longer accepts sponsored posts or advertising. Thank you.

Weblogs - today known simply as blogs - have been around in one form or another since the mid 1990s. In the beginning, most blogs were simply online diaries of a person’s life (as is now often seen on sites like MySpace and Facebook) and were a hobby more than anything.

Fast forward to circa 2000, when a number of major political and technology blogs began to emerge. Suddenly a personal hobby was becoming more than that, people actually began to make money through the sale of ads. A banner here, a link there, and some really very profitable sites were born.

Fast forward again, this time to 2006 where an apparent revolution in blog advertising is taking place. An internet startup known as PayPerPost has recently launched a second beta of their innovative system. The idea is truly simple: instead of displaying banners or targeted text ads (such as Google ads), the blogger simply makes posts about an advertiser or their products and gets paid for their efforts. A quick look at their blog reveals that some users have made over $1000 simply posting in their blogs. I’d have to say that this looks like a very interesting service.

At the same time, however, I see some controversy in this. As was mentioned at Techcrunch, the issues mainly revolve around the fact that bloggers are not required (and in some cases not allowed) to mention that a post is sponsored, and that advertisers can require a positive tone in the post. In my opinion, these issues are null and void if the blogger is responsible and always discloses his sponsored posts. After all, there is nothing wrong with a hobby that makes you a little extra cash, right?

Again, this is a sponsored post.