Dateline NBC Courts Blogs for Links - So What?

According to Nathan Weinberg, Dateline NBC is BlogAds campaign. Nathan writes.... "I don't fault NBC for doing this. I think every advertiser on my blog should send me a pitch when (or better, before) they buy an ad, with no expectation of payback. I hope that if someone were to write about that pitch, they be transparent and point out the ad in their sidebar. I think NBC should have went the Marquis route, financing the discussion, so it was clear that the content is sponsored." (For blog newbies, the Marqui program Nathan mentions refers to a campaign about 18 months ago where a telecommunications company are advertising in? It's silly to always assume that marketers need to uphold to a higher standard of transparency when dealing with bloggers. Sometimes they do, but not in this case. Senior Vice President with Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.