Answer Guy Central

OK, so that hasn’t happened yet. But it should.

Kim Kardashian, one of those famous-for-being-famous celebutantes we just can’t get away from, has a new income stream. Tweeting. And get this: Ms. Kardashian’s rate is $10,000 per.

It shouldn’t surprise you that Kardashian gets paid to tweet, any more than it would if you found out that any message to 2.7 million people (her following as of December 20 2009) was compensated.

Now do the math: a television ad during the Super Bowl goes for about $3.5 million, and reaches about 400 million people. Paying Kim Kardashian $10,000 to put a message in front of her followers, who wish to hear what she has to say, is a bargain. The Super Bowl ad reaches 148 times more people, but cost 350 times as much. And a bunch of the potential viewers walk away from their TVs to get snacks while the ad is running!

Still think social networking doesn’t matter to the way you manage business change?

Point #2:  a couple of months ago the FTC made it illegal to blog for pay without disclosing that you were being paid. And let’s be clear; both by function and frequently being referred to as a micro-blogging service, posting on Twitter is blogging. So when we see this . . . :

. . . where’s the disclosure?

It’s coming, and soon. To be fair, Kardashian claims that when she posted that Tweet she hadn’t yet signed as a spokesperson for Carl’s Jr., so maybe there’s a loophole to wriggle through. For you though, the message, again, is clear: ignore social networking at your own peril.

Oh, and by the way: The fine is $11,000. This tweet could actually cost Ms. Kardashian money.

Do you Blog? Do you believe everything you read in blogs? For that matter, do you believe what you read in newspapers and magazines, or see on television?

Or do you decide for yourself what is fact, and what is opinion, and go from there?

If you write a blog, the folks at the Federal Trade Commission have made your life a bit more interesting. In this ruling, the FTC has mandated that when you are paid to write something you have to disclose the payment.

I want to like this idea. Really, I do. But it’s just about the most ridiculous rule I’ve ever seen. Nobody paid me to write that. And I don’t think it will represent a business change for me or for you, because it isn’t enforceable.

Through a chunk of the 1990′s I was a technology journalist. I wrote for PCWorld Magazine, in addition to turning out a very popular newsletter called IYM Software Review, doing television for CBS News, and of course performing as The Computer Answer Guy. And I had rules for what I said and how, most of which I made myself because I was in charge of such things. And because it matters.

While President of the Computer Press Association I had an opportunity to call out InfoWorld publicly when they buried an advertisement for Microsoft Access in the middle of a round-up of database software products . . . and declared Access to be the best.

I believe that people need to disclose conflicts of interest, and better yet, avoid them. But these things are self-policing; the FCC is not equipped to make rules on matters like this, and nobody can enforce them meaningfully. Most “traditional” press outlets have stringent rules about what’s allowed, and it’s for this very reason that bloggers are generally not even seen as “press”.

By the way: If you send me $11,000.01, I’ll happily write something positive about you. And if you like I won’t disclose that you paid me.