Boredworkers.com

I joined up with the Text-Link-Ads publisher network a couple months back. They’ve done a good job developing their business, promoting, selling, and marketing. Yesterday, while checking my mail, I came across an email highlighting their latest venture: ReviewMe.com.

The concept of publicity and publication have evolved greatly over recent years, with the increasing popularity of social networking and blogs. Marketers are starting to see value in such mediums to reach out to a broader audience base. The idea of getting bloggers to write a review article on a product is not a new one. The question is how does one go about connecting the dots and bringing publishers and advertisers together in a seamless manner? That’s where ReviewMe.com steps in.

The Nature Of The Beast
Think of it as a freelancing…
Harnessing the the rich publisher network and successful concept that is Text-Link-Ads, they have created a profitable market place. One in which publishers are free to roam and purchase reviews from the bloggers within the network, much the same way one would buy a book from an online bookstore.

Advertisers are presented with a wide selection of bloggers that are relevant to their business, whom they can hire for a fee. Bloggers when hired are given a timeframe in which to write and publish an article on the topic of the advertiser’s choice. A win-win situation of sorts, where one party gets some publicity, buzz and quick honest feedback while the other has a nice post in the books and increase the funds in their Swiss bank account.

It certainly beats hiring a marketing team to scour the web for a select number of blogs to write reviews. And as a blogger, it’s a whole lot better than approaching a giant conglomerate trying to freelance your services.

To participate as a blogger, simply:

1. Register as a publisher and submit your site to the ReviewMe network.
2. Once approved, wait for clients to purchase reviews from you off the ReviewMe marketplace.
3. It is up to you whether or not to accept a review request.
4. Write your review and get paid between USD20.00 to USD200.00 for each completed posted article.

Having said that, there is no limitation as to what you write except for a 200 word minimum on the article length. Constructive critism, downright dissing, or sing their praises, it is all up to you.

First Order Of Business
The name ReviewMe itself is rather suggestive. As proof of concept, they are putting up an open offer of up to USD25,000 for bloggers to review the site and service. Hence this article.

The Site
Ask any marketer and they’ll tell you that first impressions are very important. On my first visit to ReviewMe, I liked the design. As proven by Google, simplicity is the way to go. Sensory overload is not a nice feeling.

With a simple layout, soft pastel colours, easy navigation system, and strong concept, ReviewMe has all the makings of success. While it does take a while to get used to the interface, the simplicity of it all makes for a short learning curve. The transition from visitor to publisher is quick and painless. Probably the most difficult bit of the entire process would be writing the review article at the end of the day.

The FAQ answes some basic questions, but there are probably a few more that should be added to the list.

• What is the review process for a published post?
  e.g. Does someone come to check on the site after a given grace period to see whether a publisher has made the review post?
• Is there an expiry on review requests?
  e.g. How long does a publisher have to accept a review request.
• Is there a time limit to completion?
  e.g. I noticed a 48 hour time limit for the ReviewMe review, but does that apply to all reviews? When does the clock start ticking? When an advertiser makes a request or when a publisher accepts?

How The Review Works
To answer one of my own questions, here’s how I think the review process works. When you register a new blog, you also submit an RSS feed. The people behind the scenes probably subscribes to this RSS feed and skimming it for updates as they come along. Once they see a post that resembles a review, then they validate it and you get paid.

That means that if you’re using a feed service like Feedburner, make sure that your RSS is updated upon completing the article. Otherwise if they do employ a grace period for reviews, you may find your RSS doesn’t reach them before the deadline. From experience, Feedburner did break down on me once, not updating my feed for nearly a fortnight before I noticed and pinged them. It would be wise to take note of this.

While I find the concept to be interesting, it does leave me wondering about scalability. Supposing that the manual review process described above is true, the overall process would be slow and tedious. Especially if the blog sees a large number of updates a day. I think that the filtering process will be the killer as the network grows.

I don’t see any real way to fully automate the process and take human intervention out of the equation. Perhaps they employ an RSS reader and with some automated keyword filtering for verification. Who knows. I’m sure they would have thought about it and have some plans to solve the problem.

Update (12-11-06 00:54):
Ok. Here’s how the process REALLY works. You accept an article (which I just did for reviewing ReviewMe. So yes, this is a sponsored post). Then when you’ve completed the assignment, you submit the article for the accepted assignment. They’ll then review it and pay you. Not as troublesome as an RSS review but the human factor is still deep in there.

Anyway, having said all that, I wonder if I’ll get paid for this. I’ll let you know if I do :)