Peddling Influence - Ads vs. Reviews

There's a new trend that's emerging in Web 2.0 - the mashup of content and advertising - or more properly "Content Driven Marketing".

Disclaimer: The author is currently consulting for a Web 2.0 VC backed start up who will soon be entering the "Content Driven Marketing" arena by going one step further and offering "Content Driven Commerce" that will include content driven marketing as well!

As Google AdWords began to blur the lines between site content and advertising, there are a few upstart start ups that are blurring the line between content and marketing messaging. This new trend is being led by a short list of Web 2.0 start ups each with their own special twist.

Pay Per Post (www.payperpost.com) is targeting advertisers who want to turn on the power of the Bloggosphere by asking bloggers to write about their products within their blogs. It's an interesting model and pays between $5 and $500 per blog post. How much is paid and who can blog it is driven by the advertiser based upon your blogs ranking by the payperpost.com algorithm. The site is well organized and quite functional but a little overwhelming at times.

ReviewMe.com (www.reviewme.com) is an interesting twist since it is specifically focused on the concept of the 'Review' of a product or service. It's a great concept and should prove quite successful if the community buys into the qualifications of the reviewers to review the products and services they are posting about. So far the jury is out on this one and the feedback on the reviews are mixed, some comments include thank you's for good information but many are decrying the reviews as just ads in disguise.

FlatBurger.com (www.sellsoftwaresmarter.com) (the company I'm consulting with) is about to launch a much more vertically targeted system for the online commerce and distribution of software. This new system will match qualified "Expert Reviewers" with Software Publishers and Marketing Affiliates in a 'Virtuous Cycle" that aims to improve the shopping experience for buyers by giving them independent objective reviews on software titles, improve software by putting it in the hands of industry experts that will provide the objective feedback to the Software Publisher, and to drive higher marketing to sales returns for Marketing Affiliates by providing expert reviews of software that they normally would not have access to.

It certainly does look like the Web just keeps getting better and these three concepts prove out that given a little time and a lot of brainpower new monetization models will just keep coming.