Consumers and marketers alike are learning how to navigate the blogosphere. As a relatively new medium, blogs are enabling corporations to devise new ways of marketing products. The newness of blogs is also enabling companies to circumvent conventional marketing ethics to promote products. Blogola is a primary example of this, as influential bloggers are being compensated to review new products.

Nikon is using blogola to promote its D80 camera. The company’s blogger outreach strategy is to loan D80 camera (valued at $1000 and up) to leading bloggers in hopes of getting strong reviews that will help the camera sell to amateur photographers. As with payola in the recording industry, blogola smells like bribery. While Nikon is loaning their cameras to bloggers who participate in the program, the bloggers are given an opportunity to later purchase the camera at a reduced price (a major perk by any photographer’s standards).

Naked Conversations discusses the FUD Barrier. According to Scoble and Israel, FUD stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The authors explain that companies have historically used FUD tactics to demote competing products and persuade consumers to purchase their product. Today, the authors write, FUD is used to sway corporations against blogging.

The first FUD barrier for blogging that Scoble and Israel discuss is negative comments. Having unflattering reviews posted on a message board for current and potential customers to see is deemed unhealthy for business. Conversely, blogs are said to give companies a false sense of the conversation surrounding a product. The authors quote Mike Torres of Microsoft with saying; “People are a lot more polite when they know you are listening.”

Torres’s sentiment explains why blogola doesn’t work. When companies agree to compensate bloggers for writing about their product, the blogger’s perspective is softened. Jack Jaffe’s April 29th blog post entitled D80 Blogger Outreach Rocks is laced with praises for Nikon:

“I have to tell you that in my humble opinion, this has been the best example of blogger outreach I have either experienced (first hand) or read about.”

Jaffe’s May 25th blog post Thank you Nikon! is laudatory as well:

“I just wanted to thank Nikon for selecting me to participate in their blogger outreach program. With photographs like this (which I would never have had before), I now have loyalty to a brand which quite frankly I had never considered before.”

Now, I admit that the picture Jaffe is referring to is clear, but it’s hard to not wonder whether Jaffe or any other bloggers selected for this campaign have overlooked problem areas of the camera because they are getting clear pictures. Moreover, I wonder whether these influential bloggers are experienced enough to give a complete review of a high-grade digital camera. While the D80 is built for amateurs, digital photography is a very detailed medium and the most involved enthusiasts will want to do more with their cameras than take pictures that can be uploaded to flickr.

While the ethics are questionable, I’ll also admit that Nikon’s D80 blogger outreach is a smart strategy for controlling the blogosphere. Nikon has opened the door to both positive and negative reviews, but by giving noteworthy bloggers a noteworthy product, Nikon is minimizing its chances of being criticized in consumer-generated media.