Pay-Per-Review

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Disclaimer: The following is a paid review for a promising new site called ReviewMe.

While perusing the internet for political stories to discuss I came across a friend's site who talked about ReviewMe, a new site that allows advertisers to pay well-established bloggers to honestly review their sites for maximum exposure.

Becoming a member is extremely easy and takes virtually seconds to establish an account. Bloggers who wish to solicit reviews for money must submit their blog for evaluation. Once the details are entered such as title, description (plus keywords), RSS feed and URL, your site is immediately evaluated and accepted or declined based on your overall popularity on the web. ReviewMe looks at your Alexa and Technorati ranking, as well as the number of RSS subscribers you enjoy. Reviewers may have up to six blogs to review on. The more popular your blog the more money you can earn.

While reviewers may be inclined to write favorably because they're getting paid, ReviewMe's policy explicitly states that reviews must be honest and not unfairly influenced. This is a good requirement and advertisers should be aware that they can't pay for a positive review unless it's earned.

The only problem I foresee is the ratio of paying advertisers to paid bloggers. For this new concept to work there must be a generous number of advertisers willing to pay bloggers (mostly amateurs) to review them.

To advertise you simply go to the website and chose which blogger you would like to review you. Each site's popularity is listed for you to consider.