Maybe the easiest $20

November 17, 2006



I’m not too proud when it comes to earning money. From the Bar Mitvah toast I wrote for a guy back in 1995 to the product descriptions I wrote for PC Connection (I don’t like Pee Cees at all) to the 150 sports recaps I wrote each night at $5 an hour – you can see that I like to write and will do it for nearly any sum.

Well, recently I found out from a fellow blogger that a site called ReviewMe is paying people $20 to mention them in their blog. That’s the cost of four hours of work at NESN!!

And Ben’s new fiance Squatkatieplayahata keeps saying that she’ll read BOC and listen to the Bowl of Cheese podcast, but she hasn’t named her price. Perhaps I’ll have to win the football pool again and then I can pay her off.

Or she could just start her own blog WHICH I WOULD READ RELIGIOUSLY and then she could do the review me stuff and get her own $20.

The cool thing – and bear in mind that this is a paid review – is that ReviewMe is striving to match up advertisers and bloggers for targeted advertising. SO if I attract a certain level of genius reader, which I do, then those readers will likely be interested in some of the stuff that I find interesting.

The model seems to be established by ReviewMe to keep schilling (not Curt Schilling) to a minimum because it requires that bloggers reveal that a post is paid (see my categories at the top of this entry) and they will probably only pair you with advertisers who match your style and wit.

I bet this works out much better than that lightly veiled episode I had writing reviews for DotFlowers and some SEO company back in the spring of 2004. That was a fiasco. People clearly didn’t realize that a blog is just a personal or business journal that appears online.

While it has first amendment protections (in some cases) the ‘journalistic’ blogs are clearly defined as such and readers recognize them that way. Other blogs – mine included – is an opinion venue.

When I go to Europe in July to cover the Tour de France, I’ll be writing a journalism blog from my other site – tdf07.com – but that site will be clearly marked and will likely be underwritten by VERSUS Television or CondeNast Magazines.

Keep thinking about that and I’ll be posting a proper BOC podcast episode before the weekend is over.