Reviewme.com is a brand new online service that aims to match up advertisers with bloggers who will write a review for them. This blog post is one such paid review of Reviewme.com.
When advertisers go to the site they can find relevant blogs either by a search box or through a list of categories which are presented as a tag cloud. A list of blogs is then presented, along with a brief description of each blog, its star rating, and the cost of a review. Clicking on any blog shows more details such as rankings from Alexa and Technorati, an estimate of the number of RSS subscribers, and recent blog post headings. The cost of a review is related to the blog's star rating. A one star blog costs $40, and a four star blog $250. I couldn't find any 5 star blogs.
Ordering a review is as simple as adding to a shopping cart. At checkout time you get to provide a few details about your website and get to choose from having a review written about either a product, a service, site design or page content. Once the checkout process is complete, an offer is sent to the selected reviewers. Once they choose to accept the offer, they have 48 hours to publish their review.
Bloggers who want to sign up as a reviewer simply have to enter details of their blog. In fact, each blogger can have up to six blogs on the system. Not all blogs are accepted; a blog "must meet a minimum number of citations, subscribers, and traffic". This decision is made automatically and you know straight away whether you have been accepted.
Users have an account page which shows the reviews they have bought and written, and which gives access to all the functions of the site. For the most part, using the site is quite straightforward. I have used Reviewme.com to register The Toolrest as a review site on the topics of art, craft, lathes, tools, woodturning, woodworking, and I have also purchased a review from Wedaholic which was written well and very promptly.
I have few complaints about Reviewme.com and they are minor ones which will hopefully be resolved as the site matures. First point is that the page titles are all the same. This makes it difficult to move around if you have the site open in multiple tabs, and will cause problems finding bookmarked pages. Second point, and this is perhaps a bigger issue, and that is the categories they list blogs under. I had to put The Tool Rest under House and Home which seemed to be the closest fit. While I wasn't expecting to see a Woodturning category, Arts & Crafts, Recreation, or Hobbies, would seem to be big gaps in the choices they provide.
Reviewme.com seems set to change the face of blogging, creating another means for bloggers to monetise their efforts and a new way for advertisers to promote their products. Expect to see a lot more sponsored reviews soon. If you write a woodworking blog, or have woodworking products for sale, do consider working with Reviewme.com. I'll be happy to write your first review.
Technorati tags: reviewme, blogging, advertising
Categories: blogs
1 comment:
I don't like it as much. They are really pushing link popularity to their sponsors. They are not at all open as to how much it costs sponsors, or who their sponsors and bloggers are. It's not clear to me if sponsors can choose which blogs they want to write about them. I can see the whole thing getting really spammy, so I think I will give it a miss.
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