Project Blogger is a marketing scheme that gives free stuff to bloggers in exchange for their talking it up. Of course, the obvious question is whether the blogger maintains an independent voice. If they send you some crappy soft drink to try and you write that it tastes like goat urine, will they send you that hot new Nokia phone next month? It would seem that the price to stay on the gravy train would be to keep writing uncritical reviews of the free schwag.

One condition of the project is that you put a bit of code on your page that enables them to see what kind of traffic you’re getting. It seems obvious that any number of blog tracking sites could keep a list of people who are participating in the program, and we can evaluate their comments through that lens.

By the way, Project Blogger didn’t give me anything at all to talk about them, and even though I’m not signing up for the project, I could use a free cell phone.