Thursday Feature - FTC Material Consideration Guidline Compliance for Blog/Design Partners

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't have a legal opinion about the new FTC guidelines. And until there's actual case law about it, there probably won't be any hard and fast rules about what's in or out of guidance. But if you're a reviewer, or blog partner for a supplier, it's better to be safe than $11,000, or more, sorry.

Seems to me there's a huge and obvious difference between someone whose blog is essentially one big paid advertisement, someone blogging about products who doesn't actually create with what they're pitching, and those of us who accept products to review or design with, and make a point of clearly noting it when we do. Now we all have to worry about whether or not we're complying with rather vaguely defined rules because of those other bloggers.

I do try to be honest and transparent about any benefits I may get from writing about products sent to me for review for, or as a design partner of, a supplier. I have had a sidebar disclosure for some time now about where I get my promotional considerations, and as of now (even though the rule does not go into effect until Dec 1) I will have a disclosure on each post that features promotional/review/design products sent to me without charge. I'm happy to share the text - I don't know if they're sufficient, and I hope I'll never have to find out they aren't. Little fish, big internet.

Any thoughts, comments, ideas are welcome. Should these be at the top of the post? Should they be part of the actual text of the post, as in "First, I strung my beading wire with which was provided for promotional consideration by ..."? I would like to know how detailed the disclosure needs to be, but that is currently unclear. I don't see celebrity endorsers saying "Nike gave me $10M to do this ad" so why would I have to say "...with worth $1.50 each..." besides, if you link to the item, which I do, you can see exactly what it's worth. It's still a bit of a head-scratcher. Well, here's what I'm using for now:

Mixed purchase and promo:

FTC compliance disclosure, notice of material connections: All items referenced in this post, with the exception of the and (insert additional as needed), were personally purchased for the express purpose of creating .

Promo design partner/consideration:

FTC compliance disclosure, notice of material connections: All items in the previous post, specifically referenced as from , were provided as promotional gifts by for review or design partnership purposes.

New FTC guidelines for disclosure of material connections

Assorted reactions, observations about the new guidelines:

Kilpatrick, Stockton, LLP (lawfirm) - legal alert, especially read section titled Disclosure of Material Connections – Bloggers Beware
consumer reports , more consumer reports
techcrunch - this one is particularly interesting, in my opinion
siliconangle
entrepeneur.com
smartblog on social media
cnet - FTC rules apply to Facebook fanpages, too
social media biz
Maya Reynolds

There are lots more, but most are fairly repetitious, these seemed representative. Hope this post was minimally helpful and at least pointed us to additional reading on the subject that will help us figure out what our obligations might be.

Forgot to Get the Mail Yesterday...Big Mistake!

Well here it is, nearly 7:30 on Sunday, and the husband just brought in the mail that was delivered yesterday. In it was a package from a Beads of the Month club (BotMo on Live Journal, provided by Elise, whom I've mentioned elsewhere and in the sidebar). One of my favorite colors is purple and this month's theme was...Purple! I ordered "The Big Magpie" and got a wonderful selection of very cool purples and lavenders to play around with. Each bag of beads I looked at, I thought "ooh, those are my favorites" until I looked at the next bag. I have to say that the charoite beads are vying for 1st place, what a wonderful mineral! (I put little numbers on the bag to match the contents to the index that came with the package)

There was also a package from Dave at Rings & Things - some items to play with and some of their products for review here!

There were 6 cable chokers - various colors, fastener types, lengths and some nifty goodies (plus a Jolly Rancher). I immediately thought of some large hole glass beads I'd looked at the other day and put back, yet again, because I couldn't think of what to do with them. Turned out, only two of them would fit over the magnetic end of the fastener. So I put some large hole, silver tube beads and the two glass beads on it. Still seemed to be missing something. Then I went to the new beads I got from the Prolifique Etsy store and grabbed the large stone (?) rectangle and made a pendant for it. I'm thinking about maybe adding a turquoise dangle, but I'll leave it simple for now.

I won't post a review tonight - want to play a bit more with the chokers, get my thoughts together, etc. I'll probably have it ready later in the week.

Beading as a Form of Meditation, and a Diet Aid

One of the things I've noticed in the past couple years I've invested in my beading is that focusing on stringing beads, making loops, watching patterns emerge, and now, knotting beads together on silk thread, is very calming and perhaps a bit meditative - although as someone who has never practiced meditation, I can't be sure.

Sure, mistakes happen, but they don't have to be the ruin of a piece or even all that annoying to undo and fix. It's as if narrowing down the world to this bead, then the next bead, is a conduit for the release of everyday stresses into tiny, slow moving, streams of creativity. Sometimes I'll put on background music - instrumental, new-age-y Hearts of Space tunes, or Celtic ballads or even Zydeco (although that's pretty peppy if I'm learning something new, it tends to make me rush a bit). Amazing how the hours roll by, almost imperceptibly.

For example, today I continue making knotted strands, this one using 4 and 6 mm tiger-eye Czech druk glass beads, chestnut brown size FFF Gudebrod silk and 9x6mm Opaque Ivory w/ Half Picasso Roundelles with gold plated pewter bead caps and Gold Elegance gold plated 3mm round beads (link shows the 4mm size). (turns out all of the beads and the tiny bead caps in this are all from Artbeads, silk from Fire Mountain gems, large bead caps from Global Beads (Gold Elegance beads are from my local Michael's).

I lost myself in the process - trying little new adaptations to make it easier to get a good knot, thinking about what I want to do next, learning that about 30" (I should have measured) of string will only give me about 14" of finished beading plus a couple inches at the end for attaching the fastener (which I haven't decided how to do yet). I haven't mentioned my 'needle' for threading the beads. I just used a left over piece of bead stringing (.30mm) wire bent in half. I could have grabbed a needle, but this works just fine and if the silk thread slips off, there's less hassle re-threading than with a needle (with my eyes I have to use a threader, plus re-threading on a needle frays the cord).

I have taken some time out today to write this, and while I was looking up some of the items I used on the Artbeads site, I stopped to write a review of the gold plated pewter bead cap (which should be up in 72 hrs according to the site).

I also went out to do some shopping and picked up a new 'daylight' 23 watt flourescent bulb (same output as a 100 watt incandescent and allegedly uses 75% less energy and will last over 10k hours, also provides a brighter, more natural looking light). I had a 60 watt incandescent bulb in my desk lamp, this new bulb is an enormous improvement.

Another necessity was replenishing my Arizona Diet Green Tea supply. It's pretty much all I drink, and I drink a lot of it, so I buy 6 or 8 gallon jugs at a time. What I haven't done yet is stop for a meal - beading as a diet aid...