Gimmie 5: The 42 Now on Twitter

I owe myself 5 bucks.  I bet myself that I would never join Twitter, but I lost.  I guess technically the blog joined, but I'm be the author, so yeah, I lost.

I will try to make it about news, but also some funny stuff I think of riding the bus, walking the streets, people watching and taking part in the 24 hour media cycle that DC is blessed/cursed with.  Probably will be more opinionated than the blog; as much as one can opine in a single sentence.  And I'll link to cool articles or news items.  I'll take some photos as well.

If you ended up losing a bet and joining Twitter as well, you can add The 42 Bus here.  Or just look at the sidebar at the top of the screen and new messages will show up on a regular basis.

New (Clearer?) Rules for Bloggers and Their Reviews

The Federal Trade Commission has cleared up some rules regarding bloggers and reviews of products or services. Basically, if you blog and review a service or retail product AND get paid by producer of the service or product specifically for the review, you must disclose that fact.

The FTC news release can be found here.

And a New York Times explanation of the ruling is also helpful.

Luckily it appears that if there is a violation, the enforcement would be focused on the producer, not the blogger or other poster in question. Seems like a fairly ethical rule that's easy to follow: If someone pays you to promote a product, that's an ADVERTISEMENT, not a review. And should be labeled as such. I've never been paid for anything on this blog. And there are no ads, not even Google Ads. hat may change one day, but not right now. I do like to promote places I like, especially if they serve good vegan food or have great service, etc. But no one's offered me free food as payment just yet... (hint, hint!)