Review Me launches

The review that follows is a paid review of the new Review Me service.  I have every intention of keeping any and all paid content honest.  If you have any question about that, you can see my previous posts about this and other services like it here, here, and here.

I like to try and sign up for new services and websites as they come out.  It gives me a chance to write about them and everyonce in a while, I find something I’ll use.  It’s entirely too early to tell whether Review Me will be one of those services/websites, but as new advertisers join and more opportunities present themselves it could become valuable.

Signing up for Review Me is extremely easy.  Just a little info and you’re in.  If you’re already a user of Text-Link-Ads, you’ve probably already gotten the email that said that your blog is pre-approved.  If not, adding your blog is pretty easy too.  All you’ve got to do is input the URL and add some tags and a short description and you’re off and running.  As yet, I haven’t heard of a blog being turned down.  I would imagine that if your blog is extremely spammy, you might have a little more trouble than I did.  Of course, you likely would expect that.

If you haven’t caught on yet, Review Me is a paid advertising service.  The folks behind it seem to have taken all the feedback from the release of PayPerPost, a similar service, and made the most important changes. Probably the two most important changes were the addition of a required disclosure and no requirement to be positive.  You absolutely must make it clear that you are being paid for the review.  I like that.  I don’t mind getting paid for my content, I already do via the adsense ads and TLA ads in the sidebars.  As long as the money doesn’t affect my review, and it won’t, why does it matter if I get paid to review a site.  Trade magazine writers get paid to review sites, why can’t I?

Another welcome change from the PayPerPost model is the actual payments.  Instead of being paid anywhere from $1 to $20 for a post, the Review Me model pays anywhere from $20 to $200 to it’s publishers.  Like TLA, the revenue share is 50%.  So an advertiser pays $40 for a review of it’s site and the publisher gets $20.  We’ll see how many advertisers sign up, but already the Review Me folks are claiming a great start.

So those are the pros of the service.  And for the most part, I think it’s easy and the model is a sound one that has a bright future.  There are plenty of detractors like TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington that can’t seem to get their heads around the paid content bit, but to me there is no difference between a fully disclosed paid post and advertisements in the sidebar.

One thing that I would change so far:

I almost missed the wordcount requirement for the review.  It’s 200 words by the way.  The requirement is added to the notes in what seems like almost an afterthought.  The requirements for the review should be very prominent.  I can understand the need for a minimum word count.  It keeps people from just adding a link and a short blurb to get counted for payment and actually makes a blogger think about the subject long enough to write 200 words.  Just make it obvious.

I think the danger in a service like this is the dilution of content.  If a blogger were to take advantage of every offer that comes his or her way, chances are some of the posts will be off topic.  As more on-topic advertisers come on board with Review Me, I will most likely take them up on the money.  I don’t believe the disclosed post dilutes my authority or the trust of my readers.

If you’re interested in the Review Me service, give them a test drive.  They’ve set aside $25,000 to pay for posts on Review Me like this one.  When the money’s gone, the money’s gone.  The price for this blog was set at $60, so I will receive $30 for this post.  Some have reported higher payouts, some less.  The payout seems to be based on a set of metrics that contains Alexa rank, feed rank, and technorati rank.  Not the best metrics in the world, but universally accepted until a better alternative surfaces.

P.S. Anyway we could get a fun little logo that we bloggers could include in our posts that would act as the disclaimer?  Perhaps Review Me Roy with the disclaimer directly underneath?  Maybe not. Just an idea.

P.P.S.  I’ve added an Ad Content category so that there is no confusion as to which posts have been paid for and which have not.  All paid posts will be included in the Ad Content category.

Technorati Tags: review me, paid posting, paid content, payperpost, paid