There's a lot of discussion going on among bloggers of all lists about Marc Canter's proposal to pay bloggers to write about a product on their sites. Many bloggers are against this idea, starting from David Weinberger, Stowe Boyd and Jason Calacanis.

I cannot say if this approach to on-line marketing will work, but I'm not worried about the blogosphere integrity as others seem to be. I think that we are a group of smart people and that most of all we understand the value of being connected and how reputations are build.

Let's say that, for example, David Weinberger would start writing about some specific product, telling us that he's getting money for this. I assume these wouldn't be gratuitous links to a site, we are not talking about click through here, these would be posts discussing advantages or disadvantages about this product from David's point of view. Would be David be biased about this product? Of course he would! Just like he is when he talks about his PC or his weird power problems at home.

The key here is that I trust David, I know that he wouldn't lie to me. It's not because we've met a couple of times, it's because I have been reading what he writes every day for years and I think that whatever decision he would make about his weblog would be open and honest.

The same could be said for many other bloggers I read and of course the the contrary is also true: there are bloggers I don't trust regardless of who might be paying them or not.

What I mean is that I believe that the power of the relationships that we develop day by day in the blogosphere is stronger than a few dollars spread here and there by a marketing campaign. Yeah, some of us might end up being corrupted, but this is only a digital version of life, it's not perfect.