Review the reviews

When I wrote about my experience with paid reviews a few days ago I didn’t realise that very few people have actually did such a thing. The post proved very popular and quickly got a lot of pingbacks. It also inspired John Chow to talk about the subject in his post Share Your Experience with Paid Reviews. It appears that up until now, very few people have actually talked about their experience with paid reviews which is kind of surprising considering how popular it is and how much money people are spending on it.

Gap in the market

Jamie Harrop sent me an email tonight about his new website Blog Ad Reviews. He had read John’s post and was inspired to build a website where people can leave feedback on the reviews and advertisements they have paid for in blogs. The structure and design of the site seems ready but it still lacks content. At the moment it has one review, namely a review of Jane May’s blog Daily Web Ideas. However, Jamie’s a very enthusiastic new blogger so if he keeps working on it I believe it could turn out to be a useful site. I’ve posted a screenprint of the review page below

The more I think about the subject, the more I wonder why ReviewMe and PayPerPost have not integrated some sort of review feedback system into their websites. Perhaps they are concerned about losing sales because of negative comments but clearly there is a demand for this. Personally, the more information I have about a potential review site the more confident I am about making a purchase.

Would you be more inclined to order a paid review if there was more information from previous advertisers available?