kartooner.com

The following is a sponsored post, paid for by ReviewMe and it’s advertisers, a new service that rewards bloggers (in monetary form) for reviews.

I first read about ReviewMe on Techcrunch in an article that basically stated — matter-of-factly — that it would outshine PayperPost, a service that shares similarities in that a blogger is paid for reviews by advertisers seeking buzz about their product or service.

It’s a concept that has been long overdue, considering that bloggers have recently become the advertiser’s best friend in terms of being able to connect with various demographics instantaneously. Quite literally at the push of a button a blogger can publish a review and within a few seconds the article is read by hundreds and sometimes thousands of people.

The key to this is of course the relationship that the blogger has with his or her readers. That is, one is more likely to successfully convince others of a newfound product or service because they’ve (the audience) chosen to subscribe to said feed and participating by interacting with the author and other readers.

The caveat of ReviewMe’s influence is that you are required to disclose that the article is a sponsored post. One of the most noted criticisms of PayperPost is that bloggers can choose whether or not they feel they need to disclose such information.

The advantage of being honest from the get go is that your audience doesn’t have to feel cheated or disrespected because this is another method to support your site through monetization. To determine a payout figure ReviewMe uses an algorithm that essentially calculates your site’s traffic rating according to Google’s Pagerank, Technorati and Alexa.

Yet, with services like this in existence there’s bound to be some criticism. One argument could be that sponsored reviews damage credibility and that’s a valid concern. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until sponsored articles/posts are ignored for this very reason.

Despite this, it’s an interesting service that I’m sure many will benefit from, including the advertisers who are supporting ReviewMe and it’s legion of high-ranking (at least according to Google, Technorati and Alexa) bloggers.

As their tagline states; “Advertisers, Get Buzz. Bloggers, Get Cash.”, ReviewMe seems like they’re serious about connecting the best of both worlds. Whether or not this kind of pairing will work out is something yet to be seen.

From this point on the ‘blogosphere’ as a whole we’ll have to see how it works out and if it will either benefit or cripple the long standing credibility that readers typically have with their blog authors.