When I was in LA earlier this year I finally got to meetup with
Frank Michlick who I've been corresponding with for quite some time. He'd just left his job with Tucows to start a new venture, but was tightlipped about the whole thing.
A few days ago he let the proverbial cat out of the bag, as the runup to
SharedReviews.com's launch was made public.
So what exactly is it all about?
The underlying concept is quite simple.
People buy based on recommendations from other people. Just look at the product review sections on Amazon and you'll get the idea.
The problem for reviewers is that until now their reviews were free ie. they didn't make any money from writing them, while the ecommerce sites that published them were able to reap the rewards.
SharedReviews.com takes the idea of user-contributed content and adds a shared income model and meaning. The "meaning" part of the equation is very interesting. As someone who doesn't like anonymous posts to mailing lists it fits in with my philosophy very neatly:
We don't feel a review is a review unless you understand the reviewer. The more profile data you choose to share, the more relevant those experiences will be to others in the community.
As
Peter, one of Frank's business partners, puts it:
This belief goes beyond just rev-share where users are rewarded for their personal contributions alone. There should be mechanisms in place that allow users to define themselves within the community and be rewarded not only for the contributions that they make, but also how much effort they put into sharing them.
The actual details of the revenue sharing are currently a closely guarded secret, but Frank's team have provided a glimpse of the concept:
However, during the beta you will be able to earn US$10 for every 5 reviews published up to a maximum of US$100 per person (they've got US$100k to spend during the test period)
Since it's 2007 you can expect to see APIs and widgets galore in order to make posting reviews as easy as possible.
If you
signup now you can get in on the beta which will run next month
However, during the beta you will be able to earn US$10 for every 5 reviews published up to a maximum of US$100 per person (they've got US$100k to spend during the test period)
Since it's 2007 you can expect to see APIs and widgets galore in order to make posting reviews as easy as possible.
If you signup now you can get in on the beta which will run next month
