Get your red hot blog URLs so you, too, can pitch to bloggers

Just as PayPerPost has revised its business practices by requiring its bloggers to disclose the fact that they’re getting sponsorship money, another enterprise has unleashed a service that will make it drop-dead easy for anybody to start pitching bloggers without any such constraints. Umbria Inc., which describes itself as “a market intelligence company that specializes in blog research and consumer generated media (CGM) for market insight,” has launched Umbria Connect. Customers will be able to get URLs of blogs that talk about themes or topics that match their line of business. Umbria Connect will sell the URLs in batches of 25.

I can just imagine companies utterly clueless about blogs—and mercenary organizations that just don’t give a damn about blogging etiquette—jumping all over this offer, grabbing up URLs and sending out bazillions of terrible pitches without ever reading the blogs whose URLs they’ve bought. (This could be a real boon to The Bad Pitch Blog.)

Umbria sees it differently, of course, as “a way to connect people who care deeply about specific topics,” according to Janet Eden-Harris, CEO, Umbria Inc. And there probably will be companies that use the service to this end. But the easier it is to snag a URL, the easier it is for companies that aren’t interested in conversation to solicit bloggers for digital ink. (Don’t think so? Look what happened when these same kinds of companies were able to get their hands on email addresses.) I expect to start getting pitches for mortgages, Viagra, and poker parlors any day now.

Pricing wasn’t covered in the press release; maybe it will be high enough to discourage the worst offenders out there.

1. Hi Shel,

   the thing is, what are *bloggers*—esp. those who might be targeted—going to think about Umbria Connect?  Nobody’s asking us, and I’m not sure how bloggers outside of marketing-blogger circles know about the program.  (yes, that’s why I blogged about it.) 

   Doomsday scenario:  A National Do-Not-Spam list.

   Posted by tish grier  on  12/19  at  06:38 PM

2. Wait a minute—is it really so difficult to find blogs related to a specific topic? I have hundreds of blogs in my RSS reader that I didn’t have to pay anyone to find!

   Anyway, silly idea. Although at the very least, (like you said) they will keep the Bad Pitch Blog busy!!

   Posted by Kelly  on  12/20  at  07:19 AM

3. I’m not inclined to blame Umbria for, in the process of making it easier for legitimate marketers to find legitimate correspondence targets (how’s that for a new buzzword? tm me, please), making it easier for idiots to send stupid pitches. Without it, they will find ways to be idiots all by themselves anyway.

   Posted by Doug Haslam  on  12/21  at  11:14 AM

4. If a company is so clueless they don’t know how to find a blog that’s a fit for their market, then thay have bigger problems than Umbria.

   <begin imiginary example>

   SVP of marketing for ShotGunLand.duh ponders…

   hmmm…me wonderz if theyze be blogs ‘bout
   duck huntin, me fav-o-rite- sport?  Lemee
   googler-er’ an see…

   type: duck hunting blogs

   click: search

   I be danged.  895,000 of em.

   <end imiginary example>

   Gee, that was hard.

   Eric

   Posted by Eric Ward  on  12/21  at  02:02 PM

5. Bloggers are some of the best-informed consumers in the market today. Their opinion matters, and smart companies are starting to listen in earnest. Umbria Connect is designed to help those companies listen and engage with select bloggers to help them make their products and services better.  Umbria has a policy to not sell Connect to any entity that is not engaged in legitimate communication activities. As Eric says above, unfortunately, there are vastly more efficient ways to gather URL addresses for the purposes of spam, which we abhor.

   Posted by Janet Eden-Harris  on  12/21  at  02:41 PM

6. I think the real point should be that you own your url. It is only public insofar as you agree to make it public. Its value to anyone is a result of your work. put a notice on your blog and after a recent court case regarding deep linking to copyrighted material the courts (California)concurred that was a copyright violation, if they sell your url sue their asses off.

   Posted by Doug Alder  on  12/22  at  10:53 PM

7. “Umbria has a policy to not sell Connect to any  
     entity that is not engaged in legitimate  
     communication activities”

   Define “legitimate communication activities” 

   I’ve been doing online public relations and link building all day every day for 13 years, and I can promise you that one man’s “legitimate communication activities” is another man’s spam.

   I’m not trying to beat up on Umbria, and maybe we should take our talks off-blog. As a person who has been reaching out to bloggers on behalf of clients for many many years, and as a blogger myself, I know and see the challenges and abuses.
   I have a very “old school” set of rules for engagement.  Maybe we simply agree to disagree.

   Eric Ward

   Posted by Eric Ward  on  12/23  at  06:44 AM