Are you one of those "bad apples"?

Bloggers who write paid reviews, especially those who signed up with Sponsored Reviews, will have to "clean up their act" soon. Sponsored Reviews will be on the lookout for "bad apples" because their advertisers are not too happy with a number of reviews submitted by bloggers.

They are planning to introduce a new rating system for bloggers so that they can weed out those who deliver poor quality reviews.According to Sponsored Reviews, the new rating system will allow advertisers to provide feedback on completed reviews and rate their favorite reviewers.

Obviously, paid reviews have reached a point where sponsors have found that some poor quality reviews had slipped through, got posted and payment made to the bloggers. Moreover, there were discrepancies in the bidding price among bloggers which just don't make sense anymore.

What are the reasons advertisers are not happy with some reviews?

Here's Sponsored Revews' list of bad vibes that advertisers dislike:

• Poor grammar and spelling
• Requirements like word count, links, etc. were not followed
• Bloggers made non-factual statements
• Duplicated content
• Over-pricing based on quality of post
• Showing a price higher on site than what was the bid.

It's surprising it took them a while before they realized that remedial action has to be taken.

What do you say to all this?

Well, if you're an advertiser you surely would like to see that any review of your product is of high quality. Paying for links is one thing but the writing must be up to standard as well. You don't want to see poor grammar or any slipshod spelling that reflect badly on your product or company.

Let's get real. This is business. Your image is at stake!

Look at advertisements in newspapers or magazines - and do you think the advertisers can afford to be slipshod with their copywriting or artwork? They are paying big bucks to get their advertisements in print.

Do they know that there's this breed of people known as editors or copyeditors? They are the ones who take care of the language and the writing style. Do the sponsoring sites have editors or copyeditors to do the job?

In fact, Sponsored Reviews are not the only one facing this problem. The competition like PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Loudlaunch, Blogsvertise and others are probably facing the same issue. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this point.

I know of one blog that had complained about a poor review and I had the same experience earlier on, too. There are probably many others, mainly advertisers, who have also seen poor reviews. That begs the question: How did those reviews get approved? No doubt, the reviewers got paid, too.

Hopefully, paid-post programs will evolve, fine-tuning themselves to provide better qualified services and greater values to advertisers by accepting only quality posts that can only do justice to their products.
Of related interests:
Shocking quality of blog reviews revealed
Can you do ReviewMe?
Blogsvertise are doing some cleaning up
Sponsored Reviews open the doors

SponsoredReviews Open The Doors

The buzz is on. SponsoredReviews finally launched - officially on Monday, March 12.

With the backing of 360 Enterprises, Inc., which has a large base of advertisers, the team at SponsoredReviews are banking on a flood of ads to come their way.

At first glance, SponsoredReviews appear ready to give the competition a run for their money. They first announced their intention in mid-January and had called on bloggers to register early.

I'm sure many who had done that had been notified by email to sign up immediately.

Here are their carrots for advertisers:

• They'll be the first paid-blogging system to allow advertisers and bloggers to be both passive and proactive.
  
  
• Advertisers can post opportunities to attract bids from bloggers
  
  
• They can search through bloggers' profiles and purchase reviews directly.
  
  
• They are charging lower fees - at a flat 35% (with no per-transaction fee) - than their two largest competitors. According to SponsoredReviews, this is the lowest on the market.
  
  And for bloggers:
  
  
• You'll get paid on a bi-weekly basis. You don't have to wait 30 days. That's pronto!
  
  
• Manual pricing for bloggers. That means you set your own price and their system will make recommendations based on their automated ratings system.
  
  
• Their bidding system allows publishers and advertisers to negotiate pricing.
  
  
• Oh yes, bloggers are required to provide full disclosure.
  
  
• To insure that only quality blogs are allowed into their system, SponsoredReviews have set minimum standards for blogs.