I was checking the blogs in my Google reader and noticed that Kumiko made a post about PayPerPost launching a new service call PayPerPost Direct that allows advertisers to order reviews directly from a blog.
To get started simply drop the appropriate HTML snippet into your blog template. Advertisers that come across your blog and love what you do can then click on the image in your blog and create an opportunity just for you. You’ll get an email with the opportunity details and offer amount and can then log into PayPerPost.com to actually negotiate terms with the advertiser to get the very best deal for you both.
At first, this looks like a challenge to ReviewMe, which recently created a advertiser marketplace that is much like PayPerPost. Upon closer inspection, PayPerPost Direct lacks a key element (for now) to complete against the ReviewMe publisher marketplace – PayPerPost doesn’t have a publisher marketplace.
ReviewMe has a directory of all their publishers that will do reviews. While all ReviewMe publishers have the option of displaying a “Get reviewed by this blog for $400” button, most review orders come because of the marketplace and not because an advertiser visited the blog and saw the button.
PayPerPost currently lacks this directory of publishers and that makes it extremely difficult for blogs to get any review orders. If there’s no publisher marketplace, the chance of an advertiser stumbling upon your blog to find a PayPerPost Direct button is very slim. And if the advertiser found you directly, why not deal with him directly instead of through PayPerPost? On the good news side, PayPerPost tacks on only 10% to your direct price as their fee. That’s a lot better than the 50% commission ReviewMe takes. However, 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.