Congratulations to everyone who participated in the fourth month of our voting based revenue sharing system!

May Cycle Community Totals:

1) Total Community Reviews that received votes: 8891
2) Total Votes cast by the community: 125209
3) Community share of revenue this cycle: $5,000.00

Our Top 10 SharedReviewers:

First Place: jb_shops

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 92
2) Reviews that received Votes: 85
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 69
4) Review Revenue Earned: $68.44

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1467
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1411
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $32.03

Total May earnings: $100.47

Second Place: Sharkbytes

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 133
2) Reviews that received Votes: 85
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 58
4) Review Revenue Earned: $43.95

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1392
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1368
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $31.57

Total May earnings: $75.52

Third Place: Becky188

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 118
2) Reviews that received Votes: 90
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 60
4) Review Revenue Earned: $39.04

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1401
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1390
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $29.82

Total May earnings: $68.86

Fourth Place: Frogdoc

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 118
2) Reviews that received Votes: 96
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 61
4) Review Revenue Earned: $43.89

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1222
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1145
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $24.12

Total May earnings: $68.01

Fifth Place: BrookeTx

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 121
2) Reviews that received Votes: 92
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 47
4) Review Revenue Earned: $41.68

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1133
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1098
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $24.85

Total May earnings: $66.53

Sixth Place: DeDee

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 99
2) Reviews that received Votes: 89
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 51
4) Review Revenue Earned: $45.10

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1102
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1024
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $20.84

Total May earnings: $65.94

Seventh Place: dsnygrl

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 101
2) Reviews that received Votes: 70
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 49
4) Review Revenue Earned: $38.79

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1201
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1152
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $25.36

Total May earnings: $64.15

Eighth Place: kateri27

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 149
2) Reviews that received Votes: 97
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 62
4) Review Revenue Earned: $48.44

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 726
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 703
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $13.81

Total May earnings: $62.25

Ninth Place: Bosoxy

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 131
2) Reviews that received Votes: 76
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 45
4) Review Revenue Earned: $36.14

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1287
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1161
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $25.23

Total May earnings: $61.37

Tenth Place: Debbie831

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 134
2) Reviews that received Votes: 79
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 43
4) Review Revenue Earned: $35.32

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1273
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1258
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $26.03

Total May earnings: $61.35

It came as no surprise to us to find that the “Opinions of a friend or acquaintance who has used the product or service” ranked number 1 in the list of most trusted consumer sources of information as recently reported in a Forresters Media and Marketing Survey.

This, of course, has been the reason d’etre and underlying basis in fact of the SharedReviews.com business model, and as it turns out, the correct one. Not only do people value the opinions of others, but those opinions can also form the context for which people relate to one another. Just as a couple of friends may have a cup of coffee together and a laugh about the toaster they each own that continually burns the toast regardless of the setting, so do a group of people who have never met each other yet are able to share comments regarding a recently submitted review by another consumer halfway around the world who also suffers the same toaster maladies. Their motivation can range from enjoying the sharing of experiences, to warning consumers about a faulty or badly made product, extolling the virtues of another, or perhaps, if only to simply save one more piece of toast from the same terrible fate.

A product experience as explained by it’s owner gives the reader the ability to easily slip into the role vicariously and connect in a much more personal way than anything a product expert can deliver, the opinions of a blogger or a manufacturer’s testimonial section.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in the third month of our voting based revenue sharing system!

April Cycle Community Totals:

1) Total Community Reviews that received votes: 7344
2) Total Votes cast by the community: 99489
3) Community share of revenue this cycle: $10,000.00

Our Top 10 SharedReviewers:

First Place: geri

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 174
2) Reviews that received Votes: 159
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 97
4) Review Revenue Earned: $174.00

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1162
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 813
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $54.72

Total April earnings: $228.72

Second Place: becky188

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 99
2) Reviews that received Votes: 98
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 79
4) Review Revenue Earned: $126.34

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1505
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1424
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $83.76

Total April earnings: $210.10

Third Place: Sharkbytes

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 111
2) Reviews that received Votes: 64
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 45
4) Review Revenue Earned: $77.22

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1422
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1393
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $95.46

Total April earnings: $172.68

Fourth Place: Frogdoc

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 114
2) Reviews that received Votes: 83
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 67
4) Review Revenue Earned: $105.73

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1140
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1109
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $61.79

Total April earnings: $167.52

Fifth Place: kateri27

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 145
2) Reviews that received Votes: 94
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 69
4) Review Revenue Earned: $112.20

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 971
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 954
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $49.01

Total April earnings: $161.21

Sixth Place: dsnygrl

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 80
2) Reviews that received Votes: 59
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 46
4) Review Revenue Earned: $90.83

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1076
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1058
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $65.53

Total April earnings: $156.36

Seventh Place: Debbie831

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 118
2) Reviews that received Votes: 68
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 47
4) Review Revenue Earned: $72.35

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1414
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1410
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $80.60

Total April earnings: $152.95

Eighth Place: Alice

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 99
2) Reviews that received Votes: 86
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 42
4) Review Revenue Earned: $58.71

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1428
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1397
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $81.31

Total April earnings: $140.02

Ninth Place: loveonce1

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 52
2) Reviews that received Votes: 43
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 36
4) Review Revenue Earned: $55.76

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1424
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1386
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $83.56

Total April earnings: $139.32

Tenth Place: uaezarb

Review Revenue:

1) Published Reviews: 139
2) Reviews that received Votes: 106
3) Reviews that earned Revenue: 54
4) Review Revenue Earned: $76.31

Voting Revenue:

1) Votes Cast: 1127
2) Votes that earned Revenue: 1125
3) Vote Revenue Earned: $59.96

Total April earnings: $136.27

We released a number of small changes last night, but one of the biggest is the release of full RSS support for subscribing to new reviews on the site. You can now subscribe to new reviews by any of the following feeds on these pages:

1) Home Page: New reviews across the site
2) Search Result Page: New reviews that match your current search criteria
3) Review and Profile Pages: New reviews from that author

This release lays the ground work for a whole bunch of cool new apps such as a browser plug-in we’re working on with a partner of ours, and building out some widgets for blogs and other social networks to help you market your reviews outside of the community. There are already widgets you can use on popular blogging platforms that display rss feeds, so you can now use these to list your newest reviews right on your own sites! (Grab the RSS feed from your public profile page)

We’ll keep you posted on further progress, but make sure to give us feedback on the feeds themselves in the interim!

Monetizing social networks can be difficult. Users come there in order to interact with their friends, not in order to click on ads. A friend of mine has just started placing ads on Facebook and Google Adsense and is reporting a CTR of 0.1% for Facebook and 0.8% for Google Adsense. As a matter of fact, one of his ads ended up running through 15,000 impressions without a single click on Facebook. And he’s not alone with his experience.

While it’s a little early to tell (after all we’re just using a simple off-the shelf adsense account at the moment and we just started monetizing our site), it looks like we’re coming in well above the cited CTR.

Social networks may have their challenges, but when we came up with the idea for the SharedReviews site, we clearly had a focus on product reviews in mind in order to ensure commercial viability of our content. Since product reviews are an essential component of consumer research when deciding which product to buy it makes this type of content so much more valuable than your everyday generic social network.