Reviewme.com

A while back I signed up for reviewme.com, a "service" aimed at advertisers that want to get site owners to review their products for a price. Unlike others, reviewme has a full disclosure policy so that it's all out in the open. You don't even have to endorse the product, you are supposed to get paid even if you are highly critical of the product/site you are being paid to review. Reviewme then forwards 50% of the payment to the site owner that wrote the review, and everyone walks away happy. Or do they? I hadn't really given this much thought until I got an email today stating that someone was interested in having me write a review for a product related to virtualization topics. Sure, I could review the product at hand and get an easy payment, but thats where my qualms begin. How would being paid influence my review? I would not consciously let it have any bearing at all, but how could anyone reading it be sure that I'm not just singing the praise of the advertiser? In this particular case, it's a product I would very much like to see as well as try out, but the payment bit is putting me off somewhat. I'm not a purist that want to keep advertising and monetizing of sites like mine off the internet, in fact I have both Google Adsense and Text Link Ads in my sidebar and other places, and yes I do make the occasional $$ of my site. That doesn't directly influence what I write about though, it's just an added bonus that helps feed my increasing photography equipment habit. So, what do you think? Should I do this initial review and see where it leads and possibly hurt the little integrity I might have, or should I stay put on my high horse and "just say no" At the time of writing I have 29.9h left to decide if I should do this or not (and no, this is not a paid review of reviewme.com).

Posted by Christian Mohn aka h0bbel

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Published December 29, 2006 00:00
7 comments

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7 Responses to Reviewme.com:

  • feral cat
    December 29, 2006 3:51am

    Well I don’t see that cash payment is that different from the products and perks many review sites get. I get sent DVD’s all the time for my movie blog and do not feel compelled to be biased; the only thing it does mean is I may review a film I would otherwise have skipped over. If it’s a product you would like to check out anyway, then it seems fine to me. If you know in yourself you are honest then why doubt yourself. There are plenty of people whose job it is to write reviews for magazines and such and manage to do so without being compromised, there is no reason why you should be any different. The only thing I would have an issue with is people writing positive reviews about products they have never seen and don’t understand as probably happens with PPP, but they will lose the trust of their readers pretty quickly I expect.

  • mrique
    December 29, 2006 11:41am

    dont sell your soul for 3 pennies

  • h0bbel
    December 29, 2006 12:22pm

    Feral Cat: You make a valid point, and I’m under no obligation to give the product at hand a favorable review at all. That being said, they are indeed paying to get their site/product mentioned.

    Mrique: I don’t consider this website to be my soul, nor do I think reviewing something for a payment could be considered selling my soul. As long as the site/product is not out of the scope of what I normally write about I don’t really think there is that big a problem.

    I might very well go with this first one, and see where it leads me.

  • Ralph Dagza
    December 30, 2006 10:47pm

    Im not really a big fan of ads but we have webhosting bills to pay as long as the ads arent annoying i think its fine.

    and for some reasons i dont like the idea of payperpost because it makes your blog looks like its fabricated, youre only posting because youre getting paid. i think blogs are for expressing personal opinions and sharing ideas

    i dont even know what im talking about, i think i should go back to bed

    btw

    nice blog, im one your new subcribers :)

  • h0bbel
    December 31, 2006 12:37am

    Ralph: I don’t think my ads are annoying, I try to blend them in as much as possible. PayPerPost smells bad, and I get a semi-bad scent from Reviewme too, but I’ve decided to go with this first one since the product in question is really on-topic and I’m genuinely interested in having a look at it. I would probably post something about if I had the chance to look at it without getting paid too.

    Full disclosure on this one, and I’ll see how I feel when it’s done.

    Also, thanks for subscribing. :)

  • Billy The Blogging Poet
    January 5, 2007 11:40pm

    I tried ReviewMe.com and didn’t get paid.

  • Reviewme - Part Deux - h0bbel
    January 6, 2007 12:14am

    […] mentioned a few days ago, I got an offer via reviewme.com and I had some ethical concerns regarding it. Basically I decided I would give it a […]

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