kotaku is on there too

I say we get a pool together to buy a good review of the PS3 for Kotaku ;)

And on the day that the big four labels have been asked to renounce payola! I will look forward to the tradecokeforaproductreview.com to go live soon.

Maybe some Nigerian spammers will fall for it!

Maybe they're just "purchasing" positive comments on the sites.

By the way, Laplink Software is the best software around!

(That'll be $500, please.)

also have slashdot listed and you they barely do reviews as it is...

something smells VERY fishy

I'll bet the fine print says something about how, for the fee, they 'submit a review' to the site in question.

No promise on getting it posted, however.

If so, its actually quite brilliant...scammy, but clever.

Yep- from some link about how it works or something:

1
Browse our marketplace of reviewers to find web sites that are relevant to your target audience. Reviews start at $40.00 and are a one-time fee per review.

2
Create a free account, define the products or services that you would like to get reviewed, then purchase some reviews.

3
Your order is sent to the reviewers and they will choose to take on the review or not.

4
You receive notification when each review is completed and published to the reviewer's web site.

You know what time it is....

that's right, time to start a review-whoring website for some quick cash.

I'll be right back.

So did Lifehacker actually get an email from ReviewMe requesting the review, or did they take down the profile before they even got that far?

Hope Sara didn't pay upfront.

phil from MAKE here - they claim we (as well as boingboing, slashdot, lifehacker, etc etc) are participants in a program whereby someone can pay to get products reviewed on our sites. it's obviously a lie, we have alerted our legal folks.

I tried them out back when they ran a $20 if you review Review Me promo.

My review was approved, but I never got the money.

If they ask you to take your top off, get the money first.

--Annette Atkins, in Drop Dead Gorgeous

Nowhere does it say what happens to your $500 (or however much you end up paying) if the blog doesn't take the offer. Presumably you get something back, but it's not explicitly stated. At least, that would be the right thing to do to avoid being a complete scam. I'm sure there's some kind of "fee" associated with the mere submission of the request, though I haven't tried registering as an advertiser to see what the terms are.

This site is basically just a middle man, trying to insert itself into a marketplace that doesn't exist yet. I suppose you have to credit them for thinking up of that market, but it does appear to be very scammish to me.

Arguably, this site is making use of the blogs' names in a manner that would falsely suggest a connection to the company. The more widely-read bloggers should try to get it shut down for their use of their name, not only for the purpose of protecting the public and people like our friend Sara, but for protecting their reputation. I'd say the kind of connection ReviewMe is trying to make impugns the good reputation and "street cred" for providing good, objective reviews.

It's quite sad that there are companies filled with people this *stupid* to fall for something like this...

Hey Guys, Patrick Gavin from ReviewMe here, first sorry for this, we are fixing the problem now. This was not an attempt by ReviewMe of trying to deceive advertisers but was a case where we left a loophole in our system where a blog could be added by someone who did not own the blog.

Advertisers cannot be charged for reviews that were not completed on the blog they purchased a review from so the advertiser was pre approved but never charged. It was a mistake on our end for allowing this loophole and again sorry about that. We are fixing it now. If you need any help please email us at support (at) reviewme.com thx! Patrick

I know that blogs like Boing Boing or LifeHacker or whatever claim to not accept money (or products or favors) for story placement, but I highly highly doubt it. I have seem too many "check out this 'cool' product" stories to believe otherwise. I am fairly certain that most of the big blogs accept money for stories.

That being said, I am sure that it costs you way more than $500 to bribe the big blogs. For $30,000, I believe you could get your review on the bigger blogs, but $500 is a joke.

I am constantly amazed by sites like "ReviewMe" because I can't believe that anybody would be that stupid to think they could get away with something like this or that anyone(let alone top-name bloggers) would actually participate. Then it sets in that the reason they're doing this is most likely because they can't get work any other way.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.