I'm not sure how I feel about a report on Blogspotting (the new Business Week blog) about Pennsylvania having paid bloggers roving around and posting their experiences on their blogs. As Stephen Baker says, "Trouble is, a few of them appear to be relentlessly cheery, like
brochures traveling under another name. A dose of tedium, frustration,
or fear would make them more believable."
I don't know as how I'd give much credence to people who are being paid to write about the entity that's paying them. What I would like to see, though, is some meeting planners blogging about their experiences with various facilities and destinations they use for their events. Now that would be interesting reading! As long as they weren't getting paid to say nice things, which is kind of what I infer from the Blogspotting post. What we don't need is more PR drivel; what we do need is some real conversations about various destinations, warts and all.
(Hat tip to Tom at FuelDog)
Update: Bill Wulff of MeetingsRadio reminded me in the comments below that just such a site does actually exist, and has for a while. It's called LoudTalk.com. I just went in and tried to get ratings on two of my all-time favorite hotels--Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C., and the Fairmont Banff Springs--but it didn't have any info on them. This sort of thing is only as good as the input it gets. If you're in the mood to spread the good (and bad) word about hotels and other venues and services, go to LoudTalk and type away. I just bookmarked it so hopefully I'll remember to check back in once in a while. Another one, though not specifically meetings-related, is HotelChatter.com, which can be fun to check out. That one seems to have gotten a little more traction for some reason.