Do people really review things for cash?

The following is a paid review of ReviewMe.

There already exist some services that allow bloggers to earn money by just reviewing some products or sites. You just have to write a couple of sentences about the service and get paid. Obviously the ones who pay you expect to generate some buzz about the product. A new service of this kind has launched: ReviewMe.

As with some other sites, bloggers get paid for reviewing services or websites that should be interesting for the readers. However with ReviewMe, the Advertiser has to pay according to the popularity of the blog. Let’s say you have a very successful blog, the advertiser has to pay more and you earn more. The popularity of you blog is calculated based on statistics from Alexa, Technorati and so on. But there’s something else that’s different from other services. In your review you have to tell the readers that this is a paid post. ReviewMe suggests phrases like “Sponsored Post:”, “The following is a paid review:” “Advertisement:”.

The cost of having something reviewed starts at 40 USD, as a blogger you can earn between 20 USD and 1000 USD for each review. You get paid half of what the advertiser spends on the review. You basically can write what you want about the service, as long as it’s you opinion and at least 200 words long. Yes, you could tell everyone that the reviewed product sucks.

In my opinion, I wouldn’t review a product every day, even if I get paid for it. In the end no one would like to read that. Maybe someone with a popular blog can earn some good money by reviewing one or two products a month. What do you think?