Review Me is a new service from the people behind Text-Link-Ads. The service allows bloggers to write reviews and be paid for it. It also allows those wishing to get their site or service reviewed the opportunity to seek out sites they want to review them. So just how well does this new service stack up against others, and is there a practical use for it? We discuss.

When I checked my email today, I had an interesting message from the guys of Text-Link-Ads. The email was brief, but it basically told me that Devlounge was pre-approved as a blog at Review Me. I immediately headed to the site to see what Review Me was all about, where I was presented with a pastel colored site with big fonts and big objectives.

The Homepage & Service

The homepage was rather blank, with not a lot describing the purpose of Review Me. This is because Review Me is separated into two different categories - Advertisers (those wanting to get their product / service reviewed) and bloggers (us people doing the writing). Upon picking one of the categories, you are presented with a little more information about the general purpose of Review Me.

Of course, I found myself falling under the blogging category, so I gave it a click and came upon four simple steps to getting started:

• Submit your site for inclusion into our ReviewMe publisher network. Begin by creating a free account using the link below.
• If approved, your site will enter our ReviewMe marketplace and clients will purchase reviews from you.
• You decide to accept the review or not.
• You will be paid $20.00 to $200.00 for each completed review that you post on your site.

What jumped at me was the tantalizing $200 max pay out. $200 for one review? That had me interested.

Signup

The signup process was simple and quick, like it should be. Because I was pre-approved, Devlounge was instantly accepted, so I can’t speak for the turnaround time of the site acceptance period. If it is similar to TLA, the process should not take too long.

Blogger Control Panel

Once logged in, you are presented with a a list of pending reviews in which you have to decide to accept or deny. You have the power to approve or let loose any review, which helps keep things relevant to your site, which is a good thing, unless you’re simply money-hungry and don’t care about the relevance of a review to your site.

Due to a Reviewme launch promotion, I already had a review sitting in the queue for me to either accept or deny, and what do you know, it happened to be about Reviewme. I figured why not, and accepted it to give the service a try.

Once you activate a review, you receive 48 hours to publish the review. You then have to return to the site and submit the review URL.

Your Sites and Payouts

Reviewme allows a max of 6 sites submitted under one account. My viewing the “Manage My Sites” tab, you can see what Reviewme is currently charging for reviews on each of your sites. Depending on different variables, including traffic, technorati ranking, etc, prices are determine and will fluctuate depending on the growth or decline of a site.

My initial rate was shown was $100 per review, then the payout price per review - $50. There it was, the kicker that Reviewme did not mention on the homepage, F.A.Q’s, or anywhere else (correct me if I’m wrong, but I did not see it). While I knew there would be a percentage going to RM for hooking you up with advertisers, I wasn’t sure what percentage that would be. Fifty percentage is rather steep, and it distorts the true amount of money you can make per review. (Is it really a max of $100 per review after 50% loss, or $200 if Review Me sells your review post for $400? I’m guessing option one.)

Good or Bad

Review Me also does not guarantee a good review for advertisers. This to me is a double edged sword. As an author, I don’t want to be forced into writing reviews full of lies simply to earn income (which I would refuse to do because I’m about integrity, not pocket cash). But at the same time, do advertisers wish to shove out money to some random site, with the chance their review could hurt them more than it could help? This makes it important for authors to have products, whether it be sites, services, new web applications, etc, in top form before searching for sites to review them. It’s also critical they go with respectable, knowledgeable sites that put together clear and understandable reviews. Going with “Joe’s Big Web Review Site” probably wouldn’t be your best bet, because a bad review would do nothing good for your product or service.

The Friendly Factor

There’s also that little thing I call the “Friendly Factor”. If many large sites begin only writing reviews on a pay-per-post basis, it could spell the end of straight forward, “I liked it so I’m going to let others know” type of reviews. I review sites and services I see because they interest me, not because I’m getting paid to do it. While I’ll remain a member at Review Me, I won’t simply deny review requests unless I’m getting a some cash for it.

For those of you that have signed up for the service, what are your initial thoughts?