Back in June of 2005, my 2-year contract with Verizon Wireless was about to end, so I was looking around for something different.  I settled on a specific phone, the Palm Treo 650, instead of a particular carrier, because I liked the device and couldn't see much difference between carriers.  Like any good tech geek, I searched online for the best price.  It turns out I found the best price at Wirefly:  A mail-in rebate made the phone half its original price.  Again, like any good tech geek, I looked around for online reviews of their service.  I read a few negative things about them not mailing rebates and things like that, so I was a little hesitant to try them out.  But in the end, I went for it.  The deal is this:  You have to submit the mail-in rebate 5-7 months after your phone is activated.  That sounds like a ridiculously long time, but it's so they know you're not just buying a phone and getting a quick rebate.  In my case, I "spaced on the time" and missed that time window, so I ended up not getting the rebate.  This made me incredibly mad, solely because I'm a pretty reliable person and I tend to be good with that sort of thing.  But oh well.  Other than that, my experience with Wirefly was good enough that I'd be willing to use their service again in the future. 

This is a sponsored post. 

LoudLaunch has launched.  It's the next PayPerPost/ReviewMe website that pays people to write things about specific websites and topics.  Compared to PayPerPost, the site is faster and has a nicer design, but the payouts seem to be a little less (though I'm not sure if they're employing some sort of ranking system like ReviewMe).  Also, advertisers can't specify whether a review is positive or negative.  Compared to ReviewMe, the site seems like it could possibly be available for use by more people (ReviewMe's system has advertisers choose bloggers, not the other way around).  Advertisers wishing to use LoudLaunch can start a campaign with as little as $50, though more money will allow more bloggers to write about it.  As a whole, it seems that LoudLaunch is more geared towards generating buzz about product launches and press releases, not just products and websites in general. 

This is a sponsored post. 

Sproose is a "social search engine", meaning users can interact with search result rankings.  In other words, if you search for something and you find a good result, you can give it a ranking with 1-5 stars, and that result will move up in the search results.  There are also 3 "social" functions under each search result:  Discussion, tags, and bookmarking.  These functions help the user collect and organize links found in search results, and it lets other people chime in with their comments and suggestions.  In order to fully contribute to the site, you need to go to the Sproose home page and sign up with a username and password. 

This site is attempting to do what Wikipedia's new search engine, Wikiasari, is setting out to do:  Create a search engine edited and organized by humans instead of machines.  It's worked pretty well with Wikipedia, Digg, and other user-contributed websites, so maybe it'll work with a search engine too. 

This is a sponsored post. 

PayPerPost just bought Performancing.  I tried all of Performancing's products at one time or another, and I was never really impressed by any of them.  Their Firefox extension is a good idea in theory, but I never really had much success with it.  I tried Performancing Metrics when Google Analytics wasn't allowing any new users.  Metrics has a few good features and displays statistical data pretty nicely, but like any external web statistics program, it resides on a server other than my own, so it increases page loading time.  On a positive note, I liked it better than Google's product because it displayed statistics much more intuitively for me.  For some reason, Google Analytics is like trying to learn Chinese.  I tried Performancing Partners for a brief period during my AdSense trials, and I came to the same conclusion as with every other web advertising scheme:  Companies won't buy links on my site because my site is too small.  This means I don't make money with web advertising.  As for the Performancing website in general, I have one major complaint:  The main guy (Nick Wilson) is a horrible writer that needs to discover the magical art of spell check.  Words like "contraversy" can be pretty easily corrected by some artificial intelligence. 

And I guess that's what it all comes down to.  I keep hearing/seeing press about the things Performancing is doing, but I can't bring myself to respect a website, a company, or a person who can't spell. 

This is a sponsored post. 

News from the Federal Trade Commission came out a few days ago saying, "companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers, must disclose those relationships."  This applies directly to PayPerPost, the "get paid to blog" people.  In light of that, PayPerPost is starting a new mandatory disclosure policy (as opposed to the highly recommended one) where "participating Consumer Content Creators are required to disclose their sponsored status."  TechCrunch says this is the right thing to do, which is the first nice thing they've said about PPP. 

This is a sponsored post. 

ReviewMe is the new kid on the block in the pay-per-something game.  For now, it's competing with PayPerPost, the site that recently won the "Leaves Worst Taste In Mouth" award.  As TechCrunch points out, ReviewMe has two major advantages over PayPerPost:  Required disclosure and honest opinions.  Every post about a ReviewMe product/website needs to be announced as a paid post.  One of the biggest criticisms about PayPerPost was that posts could look like they were unbiased when they were in fact paid.  This wouldn't necessarily change the content of the post, but some people didn't like being left in the dark.  The other big criticism was that advertisers on PayPerPost could require that a post be positive.  This essentially amounts to bribery, and it obviously left many people with a negative view of PayPerPost.  The only real requirement for ReviewMe posts is that they're 200 words or more.  At first that sounds like kind of a lot (I didn't write papers in college; I did math problems), but it turns out that 200 words are pretty easy to come up with when you have a brain oozing with nonsense. 

Another interesting thing about ReviewMe is its payment model.  Different bloggers will get paid different amounts for doing the same thing, based on each blog's "importance" according to Alexa and Technorati.  So basically, it's a popularity contest.  But that's how it works in other venues as well:  A 30-second ad during the Super Bowl will obviously cost more than a 30-second ad during a late-night infomercial.  This means that somebody like zefrank will make around $1000 per post, while somebody like me will make a few soybean seeds and be told to sell the plants to make real money. 

A final interesting thing is that ReviewMe is owned by Text Link Ads, the somewhat elitist marketer with the beautiful website.  TLA is sort of a big force on the internet; it just keeps popping up everywhere. 

This is a sponsored post. 

It's been about a month since I signed up for PayPerPost, and I've finally verified that it's legitimate:  I got paid $10 today for my first post.  Here's how it literally works: 

1.  You select a posting opportunity from the PPP website. 
2.  You write about it with the right number of words, include the proper links and/or pictures, and make sure you have the proper tone (that's the controversial part). 
3.  You wait about 3-4 days for your post to be approved or rejected (I haven't had any rejected yet). 
4.  After 30 days, the money ($2-$10 per post) is deposited into your PayPal account. 

Here are the terms and conditions for each post: 

All posts must remain up for at least 30 days.
You may post a maximum of 3 paid posts in any given day.
Paid posts may not be consecutive. Each paid post must be separated by at least one non-payperpost post.
All posts must be in English on an English Blog.
Your blog must be at least 90 days old with at least 20 pre-existing posts.
Your last regular post must have been within the past 7 days.
Content must be original. You may not post the same content on different blogs.

For me, it's a great way to make a few extra bucks to pay my webhosting costs.  It's certainly not enough to quit my day job, but it's nice to be able to make some money doing what I'd be doing for free anyway.  Some people at PPP have made upwards of $2000 over the course of several months.  I don't see that happening in my case.  And seeing that advertising still isn't making me any money, this is a great alternative. 

This is a sponsored post. 

I keep hearing about Scottsdale, Arizona and how great of a place it is.  Wikipedia said the New York Times called it "The Beverly Hills of the Desert", but that was in 1989, so I don't know how accurate it still is.  This Scottsdale real estate site shows a few houses and condos for many millions of dollars, so the city is a bit out of my price range.  But the US Conference of Mayors awarded the city "Most Livable City", and we all know the USCoM is never wrong (never heard of 'em).  Seriously though, I might be interested in checking this place out some day.  I've heard only good things.  Lots of golf, mountains, and warm weather. 

This is a sponsored post. 

PayPerPost thinks it's a good idea to have a disclosure policy on every website to let readers know if there's any exchange of money and how that money affects the website's contents.  Using the Disclosure Policy Generator, I created one.  The most important part is this:  "Even though the owner of this blog receives compensation for his posts or advertisements, he always gives his honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products."  That's been my deal since the beginning of this PayPerPost thing, and that's how it's gonna be.  I don't mind checking out a new website and offering my opinion on it.  But if the website's owner is requiring me to give a positive opinion of it and I don't have a positive opinion of it, I'm not gonna do it. 

TechCrunch really hates PayPerPost and their supposedly dirty tactics.  So does Matt (whose last name is WordPress [not really]).  And so do a bunch of their commenters.  It's interesting to see this huge battle raging in the internet world and to watch how angry people get about it.  I can sort of see both sides of the argument:  Being paid to post something on a website will just fill the internet with a bunch of paid advertisements disguised as actual posts; but at the same time, most websites are currently filled with contextual ads and mentions of sponsors.  I fail to see the difference.  Whether I disclose payment details or not shouldn't affect my opinion of the payer.  If it does, it's not worth my time. 

This is a sponsored post. 

Zopa is another peer-to-peer lending website offering online loans to online people.  It's pretty similar to Prosper in that it enables humans to lend money to other humans without the need for a bank or other lending institution.  CNN's Business 2.0 wrote an article a few weeks ago calling Zopa one of 11 major "disruptors" in the world today.  It disrupts the huge profit margin made by banks by competing with their 19% interest rates for credit cards and their 2% interest rates for savings accounts.  The average interest rate for Zopa loans is around 7%, making it a nicer investment than a CD (for lenders) and a better rate than a credit card or bank (for borrowers).  The main problem I see with it is that it's probably not as reliable or trustworthy as a bank that's been around for 100 years and has billions of dollars of assets and is FDIC insured.  Their FAQs give a little insight as to how the company is currently being regulated and what would happen if the company failed.  It offers a little comfort, but I'm still a little skeptical.  Awesome idea though, and I'd be much more willing to participate if I had more money to throw around and if I heard from people who've used the service successfully in the past. 

This is a sponsored post.