The Next Big Web Thing - Loving Teh Web !!!1!1!11

>> Return to The Next Big Web Thing Index

Saturday, October 14, 2006

New Ways Of Pimping Out Me Blogs

Pimping me blogs for dosh We all know you can make money from blogging, whether it be selling advertising, having sponsored links or sending people off to affiliate sales. A whole new wave of selling wares is upon us, and it's all about pimping out your blog posts for cash, and I don't mean splogging.

Sponsoring, blog posts has gone on for a while in lesser forms. I've seen people offering to do blog posts for cash / links on a couple of webmaster forums - it's not a new idea. However, over the last month I've seen a few things that are pointing to a growth in the industry and a new way of making a few pints for long established and skint blog owners.

I got excited this week when I received an email about my last post on this site.

"I found your blog, and am interested in sponsoring some posts on your blog on behalf of our advertisers. I read the post about '10 million dollar homepage knockoffs' and enjoyed your writing. We have 5 different sponsors that are interested in sponsoring posts on your blog."

This ~~spam~~ contact message was from a new service called Blog To Profit. The rest of the message was obviously cut and pasted, fine - I'm no stranger to that. I had a look, feeling they sent me the message as they'd actually looked at what I do.

The feeling of self-congratulatory warmth didn't last long though. The next day I had a message to my Real Cool Time blog, the sender looked familiar. I open up the ~~spam~~ contact message and got this:

"I found your blog, and am interested in sponsoring some posts on your blog on behalf of our advertisers. I read the post about 'Yo La Tengo' and enjoyed your writing. We have 5 different sponsors that are interested in sponsoring posts on your blog."

Ho hum, ok, so I feel for the old "fluff 'em with praise" routine for a few hours thinking someone actually had made a decision based on what I do here - I wouldn't be the first.

I had a look around at what they're offering. I'm not sure how good their service or prices are, as there's little at the site about that side. However, it's certainly a tempting thing to do to earn money from a blog, and a hundred times easy than getting into the BlogAds programme.

In a similar area, Techmeme are now showing sponsored posts alongside the list of new stories - however, that's not quite the same as the Blog To Profit model - but it's worth noting. It could be a good way of getting traffic to your pimped out blog - as is BlogAds.

PayPerPost has been around since the summer - and has been doing well picking up a few million in venture capital. It looks like a great way of making money from posting links and adverts within a blog stream, but the poster is not allowed to reveal that's what they've done - which raises all sorts of ethical questions and issues.

Thursday saw the announcement of the launch of ReviewMe, which I believe will be the definitive service in this growing area. ReviewMe is being run by some big names in the link building and SEO arena. It's not up and running yet, but given the expertise of the people behind it, I'm certain it will be successful and one to go for. What's more, unlike the PayPerPost model, anyone submitting content are able to be both truthful and disclose the fact that's what they are doing.

I've often posted reviews on my blogs - it's something I love doing. Sticking an Amazon link on what you've reviewed is about as close to pimping as I've got in the past. Now with this new wave, it actually looks like I could earn a few quid doing stuff. It will be interesting to see if there's actual free review material going to be made available also.

I'm guessing bloggers will be increasingly getting into these new services. The trick will be keeping these paid posts in the spirit of their blogstreams. Stay tuned, next week we'll be looking at the latest Disney movie and CD by Eminem, and telling you why we think they will be 'The Next Big Web Thing'...

1 Comments:

milo said...: Good for money making, bad for reputation.; 9:43 AM

Links to this post:

<$BlogBacklinkTitle$>: <$BlogBacklinkSnippet$>
posted by <$BlogBacklinkAuthor$> @ <$BlogBacklinkDateTime$>

Create a Link

>> Return to The Next Big Web Thing Index

Site design and maintenance by Day Trip Media © 2006 - 2006. The material on this page is protected by copyright laws and cannot be used without the express written consent of the owner. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.