[shanemhansen]

It's called native advertising and unfortunately it's what publications are betting on to survive in an era of ad blockers.

[shostack]

On legit publications, native advertising simply means an ad unit that is tailored to fit the site design/flow or quite often a more editorially formatted ad unit. However it will always have some sort of ad indicator or the company would lose the trust of their readers.

Not saying press for dollars doesn't happen, but native advertising is something very specific. I highly recommend you familiarize yourself with the IAB's definition and recommended guidelines[1]. Large online brands follow these because they want to say they are IAB compliant for brand conscious advertisers with big media budgets.

[1] http://www.iab.net/nativeadvertising

[Angostura]

So you're saying that Dropbox paid Fastcompany to run this piece?

[shanemhansen]

I'm not saying Dropbox paid Fastcompany to run this piece. I was responding to: "I wonder how you get media to write about your startup like that?".

Native advertising is a thing, one I wasn't aware of until recently.