Are Jason & Jeff really jerks? Or is Loren a jerk? I say they’re both right even if they disagree.

While perusing TechMeme a few minutes ago, I ran across a Valleywag post enticingly titled, “Jason and Jeff are Jerks” knowing instantly that they were referring to Jason Calacanis and Jeff Jarvis.

I couldn’t resist.

On the other end of the link was the video you see above: a rant against Jason and Jeff about the stands they’ve taken regarding the new service known as PayPerPost, which pays bloggers to mention particular products on their blogs.

This is an issue which I had a particular sympathy for both sides.

On the one hand, not even a year ago, I used to have Google Adsense ads adorning these very pages. I read all I could about gaming Adsense: writing articles in a particular way so as to attract the right ads from Google so people would be more likely to click on them.

I wrote reviews of eBooks like “The Rich Jerk” which advocated planting lots of affiliate links (including to his book) in your blog so that you could make more money. And ultimately, I succumbed to temptation and DID plant affiliate codes in my eBook reviews [Disclaimer: I have since taken all of those articles down from the site and hopefully, they’ll never be seen again.]

I figured, for all my effort, I’m entitled to make a few bucks, so why not?

But, perhaps it was my Methodist upbringing, I never felt right about it. I felt like a whore.

Yes, it’s OK if other people do it and I know that other people (like TV shows, magazines, movies) regularly compromise editorial integrity in exchange for making a few extra bucks. But it didn’t feel right to me.

So when Jason and Jeff took a particularly harsh stand against PayPerPost, I agreed with them.

But knowing my own past on these very pages, I couldn’t help but to agree with Loren Feldner from 1938Media.com for his own outrage.

Wishy washy? Maybe. I just know what it feels like to compromise your editorial integrity in exchange for money, and like I said, in my case it didn’t feel too good.

Loren and his buddies can use PayPerPost for a little extra dinner money while Jason and Jeff rail against them, and I don’t have a problem with either one of them.

For those of you who are interested, you might want to check out 1938 Media’s web site. You’ll get a kick out of it. He rants about all sorts of things online business related… Voices like his should be heard by all.

Aaaaah… That’s the beauty of the internet.