Peeling a Pomegranate

I wanted to announce that I’m participating in a new program run by Reviewme.com. The program pays bloggers, like me, to review products, websites, what-have-you. What’s interesting about he program is that bloggers are required to disclose that they are being compensated for the review. There’s been a lot of talk about bloggers taking money to review products or write articles and not telling people, which I think is really unethical.

So what does this mean for this site?

Really, very little. From time-to-time I’ll post something that is clearly labeled as sponsored. Whatever I write will be my honest opinion, and for that honest opinion I’ll be given a small sum. Frankly I don’t really see people clammoring for me to write about them. In case you hadn’t noticed, I write for a rather niche audience. But, with any luck someone with a brilliant line of pomegranate products will send me some to try and pay for my efforts. That would be sweet! My other hope is that I’ll have the opportunity to read new books or learn about products, services, or websites that I wouldn’t otherwise know about and be able to share them with you.

There’s a few other reasons why I think this program is actually a good one. First, I’m not required to give a good review. The FAQ on the site actually states that. I’m not supposed to be unnecessarily harsh or derogatory, but I’m allowed to be honest. The second thing is I don’t have to take everything offered to me. I can review potential assignments and decide if it’s something that is appropriate for me to write about on this site. That’s why I don’t do any automated Amazon promotions. If there’s a book I want to share with you — I’ll share it with you. Since I’m promoting Amazon and someone’s book, I earn a few cents if you click through and purchase the book. But even the Pomegranate Shop and Embroidery shop are curated by me. I pick what goes there — not a computer and not someone else. I have to think it’s interesting enough to share. The majority of the Amazon stuff I post on this site are books I’ve read or things I’ve tried myself. I plan to hold ReviewMe.com to the same high standards.

That brings up another point. I’m not going to review off-topic things on this site. If it’s not something I would write about without the promise of compensation — I’m not going to take the assignment. So far it seems like it will be very easy to accept or turn down assignments. I also like that they don’t take every blog, which reduces the number of spammers and trash sites that can be involved. They using a ranking criteria. This site scores on the low-end of their scale, but passes the bar to be admitted. I actually tested several sites to see if they really would turn something down — and they did. The rankings are based on metrics like Alexa rankings, Technorati rankings, RSS subscriptions. I’m really not sure how they are coming up with the RSS number, but as I know how many of you are reading via RSS, and I’m quite familiar with my Alexa and Technorati rankings — I think my score is pretty accurate.

While I’d love to have higher rankings and more subscribers, it’s not really all that important. I’m still excited when I get a comment on a post and positively blissful when an actual discussion gets going! I’d rather have people reading and responding then linking to me and never coming back. I know that most people still don’t get RSS. With what I do for a living, I spend a lot of time de-mystifying technology for people.

So I hope you’ll respond favorably to my earning a little extra embroidery floss money by reviewing the occasional something.

Technorati Tags: reviewme.com, blogging, ethics, transparency