Blogger Colleen Caldwell rants and riffs about whatever strikes her fancy — a run-in with her child’s school principal, the rising price of Girl Scout Thin Mints, an upcoming movie that caught her eye. “Has anyone out there read a book called The Ultimate Gift? I just heard that a movie is being made of the book (which sold 4 million copies),” she wrote in a recent post on her site, Simple Kind of Life.

The 30-year-old software analyst from Brooksville, Florida, went on to praise the inspirational message of the Fox Faith film, which would be opening that weekend, about a trust-fund baby who discovers the joy of giving. Caldwell noted that the film’s producers were letting opening-weekend ticket buyers direct a dollar from the admission to the charity of their choice.

One thing Caldwell didn’t mention: She was paid $12 to help build a buzz around the movie opening and charitable campaign — bringing her blogging-for-dollars take to more than $7,700.

Thousands of bloggers are writing sponsored posts about subjects as diverse as diamonds, digital cameras and drug clinics. The bloggers are spurred by new marketing middlemen such as PayPerPost Inc, which connect advertisers with mom-and-pop Web masters. Their irate blogging counterparts say the cottage industry is polluting the blog world and misleading consumers by blurring the line between advertising and unbiased opinion. “

The problem is the advertisers are trying to buy a blogger’s voice, and once they’ve bought it, they own it,” said Jeff Jarvis, a City University of New York journalism professor who writes about technology at BuzzMachine.com.

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