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What is Your Review Worth? - Some Information About Income ShareAug 10 '01 (Updated Aug 11 '01) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Don't think that you are making enough money at Epinions? Try starting your own website and see how much your writing is worth to others.
In the past few days, I've been reading some complaints by members about income share. Most of the complaints center on how the income share that their reviews are earning seems to be getting smaller as each month passes. I would like to share some information with other members as to what my experiences have been on the internet during this past year. Most members at Epinions are not web marketers, and I estimate that a good percentage of the membership does not maintain a website or even a home page. I have been a webmaster for about six years now. Until recently, I had 25 web domains in my portfolio of websites, containing in excess of 25,000 pages of web content. Many of these pages were crawled and indexed by search engine spiders and robots. Until recently, it was not unusual for me to turn in excess of 50,000 page views -- and more than 50,000 banner and text link advertisements -- per day. I say "until recently," because I have had to make some tough decisions in the past few weeks to delete some content and close down about a half dozen under-performing websites. Why? Because click-through and pay-per-action revenues have fallen precipitously for me during this past year. In case some of you haven't noticed, many high flying dot com's have went bust during this past year. A lot of advertising money has disappeared from the market, and ad agencies are beginning to admit that banner advertising is failing on the web. I remember when click-through ratios were as high as 2½ percent. Today, I am seeing rates lower than ¼ percent (less than one click-through for every 400 banner impressions). Personally, in my web businesses, I have seen advertising revenue fall 90% off from my June 2000 peak earnings month. That's right. Compared to the same time period last year, I am earning only 10% of what I used to make from online advertising. What happened? Some of my best accounts have all went out of business or have discontinued their incentive programs. Examples: -------------------- Alladvantage.com - I referred over 2,600 new members and usually earned more than $250+ per month. The company went bankrupt. Netflip.com - I used to earn $200 per month referring new members. Now, this pay-to-search service is nothing more than a shell. I don't know anyone who uses the site to make legitimate searches. Pennyweb.com - I used to make $100+ per month just displaying banner ads. Although this company is still in service, no one clicks banners anymore. I can't make money that way! I wonder: How many users here at Epinions click banners? The list of dot com busts goes on and on. My point is simply this: Income share is dropping at Epinions because revenue is dropping for everyone who displays advertising on the internet. Your reviews are earning less money as each month goes by, but the fault does not rest with Epinions. That is the nature of the marketplace, and nothing can be changed by merely complaining about it. If we want to see things change for the better, then we have to be the agents for the change. We have to take action. Complaining about the decline in earnings share in public forums does nothing but discourage other users and may, indeed, influence new members to avoid Epinions altogether. What we should be discussing are new ideas and solutions. Like many of you, my Income Share for July 2001 was small. Less than 9¢ per review, and I had written about 445 reviews up through July 31, 2001. But: the money that was posted to my account, some $30 - $35, was money that I did not have before. I consider it a bonus. And I am grateful for it. At a time when Epinions is struggling hard to keep momentum growing -- and it is doing a tremendous job -- I am thankful for the opportunity it presents. I used to post reviews and helpful articles at About.com for free. Heck, here at Epinions, at least I can make a few bucks each month and buy a nice bottle of wine or a really first-class cigar with the money that I earn just sharing some simple user experiences. I know how hard it is to manage content. I know how hard it is to make money on the web these days. I know the challenges are great. And, despite the occasional bugs and snafus that we experience at this site, Nirav Tolia and crew have managed to do one thing very well. They have developed an engaging, thriving community that has become one of the most popular forums on the internet for sharing and exchanging consumer information. And if you don't agree with this statement, then what are you doing here... reading this community center post? My final comment: I would like to see Epinions succeed. When I can, where I can, I will try to help. I encourage others to do the same. If you feel that you are being under-compensated, then try developing your own website and learn for yourself how much money your reviews are worth on the open market. Just see if one of them could make a dollar for you. I think, if you try, you will change your tune about Epinions and discover that the royalties that it pays -- in today's market -- is actually generous. Thanks for reading.  |
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