Hey Paul,

First off, good blog post. Respect for putting it out there. As Rich said, I have ample respect for you and what you do.

Vlad – I don’t think that what I said was stupid at all. In fact, I think I have a valid point, if you look to Paul’s archives they don’t focus on Nokia, Over the past recent while Paul has focused immensely on Nokia driven content. He always goes to great extent to cover the fact that he isn’t paid by Nokia or any other organisation he writes about but I would argue otherwise.

What is the retail price of a brand-spanking new Nokia N97 that only 4 people in SA have? I’ll argue more than most bloggers earn via Google or Adgator in a year. That’s paid content however which way you choose to look at it. Now let me stress that I don’t think Paul is swayed by Nokia giving him things, it’s just a very fine line to tread. Appearing as such or actually being such.

Paul – You raise a very interesting (and old) topic here, to blog or to “journ”. There is a difference but again that line is becoming blurred. More and more people are googling answers to their questions. Mainstream journo’s aren’t covering gadgets as effectively as bloggers these days. How many of the Nokia’s handed out were given to “partial” journalists? If none, why do you think not?

At the end of it all I think you write with passion and that, above all is the most important thing, but sometimes is pays to be partial, or as close to partial as possible.