ReviewMe, Blog Advertising for the Masses
11.11.06 - 08:08pm
There has been a lot of buzz lately about advertisers using bloggers to push their products. This single topic has managed to create quite a lot of uproar as some people view this form as advertising as selling out while others view this as an alternate source of income. Just this past week a new company has entered the fray, ReviewMe. Unlike previous forms of advertising that relied on banners, bars, text areas, and images, ReviewMe takes the advertising out of the hands of the advertiser and puts it in the hands of the blogger. ReviewMe features a “pay-per-post” style with the ability for bloggers and advertisers alike to browse through the collection of blogs that have signed up for the service.
How It Works
As we all know, not all blogs are created equal, or more correctly, not all blogs are equal at a particular moment in time. To help differentiate blogs so that advertisers can best apply their limited budgets, ReviewMe has a simple 5 star rating system. This system combines your Alexa, Technorati, and RSS rankings to create a single value to help separate the blogs. The image below shows my star rating, the three base statistics are averaged together to give me an overall ranking of 2 stars. Along with this ranking system blogs are given a primary tag which broadly covers the topic of their blog. I myself chose Computers however there are more than 45 current primary tags to situate yourself under. Besides this primary tag you are permitted up to six separate tags to help define your blog. I chose the tags below as I felt they most appropriately described the purpose of my blog. I’d like to mention that I am currently the only blog specializing in overclocking, no surprise there ;).
Now you might be wondering how this all works together to create some form of income. The star ranking system that I described above also is the basis for the system of payment. It seems that 5 stars warrants a price of $500, 4 stars pulls $250, 3 stars pulls $100, 2 stars pulls $60, and a single star pulls $40. Naturally ReviewMe has to make a profit from this so they take half of the total payment. I must say the system works out rather well as it gives a chance for the little guys to compete with the bigger blogs in regards to advertising. The only downside to this system is the fact that a blog can get lost in the bustle of all the blogs that have applied to the service. I myself am midway down on the 3rd page under the Computers tag so I can’t imagine an advertiser choosing my blog over the blog above and below me through just this simple interface. The search function could greatly help narrow down the search and let advertisers find exactly what they are looking for so that will help a little bit. I guess this is just more incentive to expand this blogs affect on the Internet.
The Review Process
From the looks of things there will be no gaming of this system. Advertisers query specific blogs about advertising jobs and then bloggers make the decision whether they will write the article or not. Since the ranking system is entirely automated there is no easy system to greatly increase your ranking quickly which in turn helps keep the prices in check for various blogs. Once the blogger has accepted the review he/she has a specified amount of time to write the review to fulfill their side of the contract. Once the review has been written they submit the specific URL for the review and upon confirmation payment is transfered to the user. While I only have the offer from ReviewMe on the table with a 48 hour turn around time, I imagine if there were any reviews of a physical product there would be appropriate times to account for shipping.
Initial Impression
I must say the website is extremely easy to navigate. The clear system of listing blogs and searching for blogs makes if very simple to compare blogs of similar topics however I wish the service listed more than 15 blogs per page. While it could be troublesome and create some lengthy load times, I believe advertisers will have a better time if they can view more listings without having to load separate pages. Besides this one minor issue the website design is very clear in its purpose. So far my limited experience has been a pleasure however I cannot predict if this service will flourish or not as this is entirely dependent upon advertisers and not bloggers. There could be thousands of A list blogs eager to write reviews but if there isn’t any money to pay them then the service will starve.
One particular point that I find to be rather interesting about ReviewMe is that bloggers are not required to write positive reviews. This particular issue gives the blogger the chance to be themselves while giving the companies the chance to receive unbiased reviews of their products. On a final point I would like to make it clear that I am receiving payment for writing this article. Do realize though that I will do my best to not waste your time, I myself hate when I receive advertisements for products I have no desire to own. I will always attempt to maintain “on topic” however if I manage to make a buck while I’m at it then I see no harm. If anything it’ll mean more neat toys for me to break in on this website. Now I just need to put these $30 towards a nice 680i motherboard.
I’m registered there as well. What are your throughts on Blogitive at http://www.blogitive.com ? I’ve be interested in hearing what you think of it. They’re really ramping up now and putting the call our for bloggers. If you’re not registered, use me as a referral - colleen_cc@yahoo.com
Blogitive seems to be very interesting, I’ll take a more indepth look at it and possibly write a little aside about it. Looks like it might be another way to get paid doing something I enjoy which I would then consider as free money and who doesn’t like free money?