ReviewMe.com Burning Up the Paid Blogosphere

Last Thursday, a web site named ReviewMe.com, which links advertisers with popular bloggers paid to review their products, had their big launch day. This is my paid review to review ReviewMe.com. Is that enough disclosure up front?

Oh, what a difference a day made. In 24 little hours, ReviewMe.com had received over a thousand bloggers ready and willing make $20 to $250 per review (based on certain ReviewMe.com criteria) to write honestly - scorchingly or glowingly - about products in categories as different as "autos and books to real estate and sports," Andy Hagans, president of ReviewMe.com told Information Week.

ReviewMe also quickly became a top search item on Technorati's list of popular search terms, rising with posts debating the renewed ethical question of folks getting paid to review items.

Personally, I think ReviewMe.com has a leg up on PayPerPost.com in this respect: ReviewMe.com requires paid bloggers to disclose that they are being paid to write about a product or service, PayPerPost.com only suggests that they do.

However, both paid-to-blog sites encourage bloggers to write their honest opinions about an advertiser's stuff. If a reviewer absolutely hated an item, they can by all means write so. This, to me, is a whole lot more ethical that an ad exec who knows he shouldn't write tobacco copy geared toward kids, but does so anyway just to feed his own.

Why would a site like ReviewMe.com pay for negative reviews? Like they say, even if folks are speaking badly about you, at least they're talking about you at all.