BzzAgent Is NY Times Sunday Magazine Cover Story

If nothing at all, your post made me curious. After perusing their BzzAgent.com I was curious enough to become a BzzAgent myself. In a few weeks, I'll be receiving their Welcome Kit. If the incentives are right, I maybe a BzzAgent for a long time. I'm a bit skeptical but it'll be interesting to see if I'll be able to give "candid" and "honest" opinions on products and services. I've seen a dozen, "get paid for your opinion" sites that aren't easy or to-the-point, their incentives suck and you waste too much time on them. One great service is Vividence.com for their fluid surveys. Great post!

I was not quoted, but I think the New York Times put the nail in BzzAgent's coffin. They exposed exactly how unethical the agents and their mentors at the BzzAgent HQ are (lying to their friends, lying to the folks at Amazon, lying to the folks at Barnes and Noble).

The whole company is based on people lying... even if their pay is small--or nothing--the fact is these agents are lying to the people they are pitching.

The agents themseleves say that when they disclose they are paid that they loose their audience.

We have various levels of rules in society, from simple good manners up to the law, and if you break those rules you can get ahead. The fact that BzzAgents works does not mean they are good. Most of the time sending millions of spams works, and yes crime pays. You ca als lie on your taxes, and on your resume.... doesn't mean you should.

I think BzzAgents has done an amazing job of putting a nice spin on lying... but it is still lying.

best jason

I have been a Bzz Agent on two campaigns, so far. No we do NOT get paid. There are rewards for the most active agents, but they certainly aren't major, and most aren't worth getting.

The Times article also noted that sometimes Bzz Agents say negative things about a product and that companies learn from the feedback.

What Bzz Agents do is not lying. There are many psychological factors involved. Chief among them is that some people like to be first to know about new things, and a lot of people are yentas who like to tell others what they know.

In your definition all of PR would also be lying. PR people get paid to influence the media to write about people, places and things. The key word is influence and it applies both to Bzz Agents and to PR.

Well, clearly many BzzAgents are lying to people. They admit that in the story.

Perhaps some are not 100% honest, and are deceiving people, but even those folks are involved in deception.

Decieving your friends and other folks is just wrong in my book.

best j

I have been a BzzAgent for about a year and so far I've done a couple of actual campaigns and a few BzzBlasts(mini campaigns). They send me a freebie of the product to try and while I'm trying it I'm encouraged to share around my opinion, use the product in public, ask others opinions, etc. And sometimes I've received the product and just decided it was a dud and I wasn't even going to use it or bzz it at all.

You get points for filling out a report of what people said or how they reacted, good or bad, as well as your own opinions about the product. You get your reward points either way, no matter if your feedback is positive or negative.

If agents are lying or being deceptive, that is a real shame because so far my experience has been very good and nothing on the BzzAgent website or in the literature encourages deception. But anyone who is still skeptical can sign up themselves. It's BzzAgent.com . It's fun, it's free, and if you're lucky you get to try out cool stuff for free.