Paid Reviews are considered to be the easiest way out there to grab some green money after you’ve gained some reputation/authority in the blogosphere. And many bloggers, who crave for traffic and in turn money, decides on getting their blogs reviewed by those ‘big-guys’. It’s not a good or bad discussion; But, since this invloves real bucks, you need to be sure that you’re money isn’t being wasted.

1. First of all, do an extensive research on where to get your blog reviewed, as there thousands people out there, offering you paid reviews.
2. Get to know about the stats of the site/blog you’re planning to get your blog reviewed-by. You can use free tools like, Alexa, Compete, Google Trends for websites etc to do that.
3. Select the blog/site that has got the most number of subscribers (RSS/email). Many display their subscriber counts on the blog itself. If not, you could ask the author to reveal the count.
4. Try to get reviewed by a blog/site that is in the same niche as your blog.
5. In my opinion, DO NOT opt for a MMO (Make-Money-Online) blog. Getting reviewed by them might give you a sudden boost in the traffic, but believe me, it’s not gonna’ last for sure. The readers of those blogs are fast-paced and horribly impatient, and they won’t even bother to read even one of your posts.
6. DO NOT pay for a review at a blog, where you haven’t been before. Before planning to get reviewed, be at that blog for quite some time, participate actively, and get to know the community.
   
7. Ask the reviewer to include atleast 2 DoFollow links and a link to your Feed
   
   
8. Most importantly, before taking the final decision, have a word with someone who’ve already been reviewed by the particular blog you’ve decided upon.
   Ask him about the views he got, the increase in number of subscribers etc.
   This is the best and the most effective step to ensure that you get the value for what you shell out.

Do you have any more notes on things to note before deciding for a paid review ? Have you ever got your blog reviewed and what was the result?

This is about enewss.com : The Indian Bloggers’ Network. As in all blogger networks, you can submit your blog to the index. But, what makes enewss stand out from the rest is the refreshed networking aspect of it.

The bluish-spacious design reminds me of FaceBook (old).Once you’re registered you can add fellow bloggers as your contacts, write shouts to them (as the Wall in FB ), add and view events, create/join groups based on the your interests.

Building a community around your blog is recommended for the growth, by almost all blogging gurus and enewss can help you a lot in this direction. If you’re an Indian Blogger, you should’nt miss this one, really.

Another important feature is the Regional Language categorization. There are categories for Marathi, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarathi, Malayalam, Kannada. Many more languages are to be supported soon.

Join enewss NOW ?Join me at enewss

If you’re are on web frequently, chances are high that you’ve came across different posts at different blogs talking about a same thing (a new web app/service etc.). (I’m not essentially talking about the echo-chamber; READ upto THE LAST PARA to know).

Frequently, we see many “x killer apps to do this online” posts. All of them results in a huge lsit of  “Great list, thank you” comments.  Creating one is as simple as,

• search for atleast 5 of those,
• take a screenshot of each,
• write a 2 sentence review for each
• and PUBLISH.

Now we’ve WEB APPS that does almost everything that, earlier, could be done only with Installed applications
on your desktop computer. With the innumerable startups, came lots of posts reviewing them or introducing them. These drove people to those apps and immensely helped both the creators and users (& bloggers too!)

But, it has now become serious that, one cannot remember, “which app to use for what”.
It’s because of this scenario, CLONE posts DOESN’T really SUCK. You see a post listing “web apps that helps you to edit photos online” on one blog and another one that says“Dump Photoshop, do it all online”.
Both these posts are sure SUCCESS. That is, even though, the posts might be reviewing/introducing the same apps, it doesn’t really matter to the users as they need to be constantly told “use this for doing that”

Thus, I feel/say, CLONE posts DOESN’T really SUCK !!

Introducing two new Video-Based Web StartUps - PopTok (currently in BETA) and 12seconds (Video MicroBlogging tool, currently in private alpha).

PopTok (pop-talk) essentially is an Instant Messenger where hottest Clips from Hollywood, TV and

PopTok Video Messenger - Review at AravindJose.com

Music Videos do your talking. i.e. instead of verbal (written) converstations, you drag & drop (it’s that simple) clips from movies and shows that does the talking for you. For example, if you want to say NO to your friend, you could select KingKong screaming NO (does King Kong talk ?!!) from the movie “King Kong” and so on.

It’s (PopTok) an application that is to be downloaded and which could be integrated with AIM, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger. (Compatibility with others will be rolled out soon!). They’ve created a vibrant and to-the-point visual tutorial/guide, which is embedded below:

12seconds.tv - The Video MicroBlogging Tool

The Next One, possibly a potential winner, 12seconds.tv. It’s a video-microblogging tool and could be rightly called Video-Twitter, since  It’s a super easy way to share what you’re doing with your friends and family using short video status updates of maximum 12 seconds. (Similar to text status updates in Twitter with a limit of max 140 characters).
You can either use your WebCam or you can record and share 12second updates with just about any mobile phone. Just record your video and email or MMS it to the unique email address you get and you’re good to go.

This one is of immense potential and the creators could be confident about it’s sure success. !!
For the possible question: “Why only 12 seconds ?” , They says:

Because anything longer is boring. The scientists here at the 12seconds dodecaplex have conducted countless hours of research to determine the precise amount of time it takes for boredom or apathy to set in during typical Internet video viewing. Our patent pending Electro-Tear-Duct Prongers have determined that exactly 12 seconds of video is the ideal amount of time to keep anything interesting.

I’ve requested for an invite at both these places and will update once I get the chance (and publish my 12seconds profile too) to take ‘em for a spin. now I got it. While PopTok seem to be a seriously-funny-useful-app, 12seconds could well, really be a revolution, by introducing Video-MicroBlogging

With the term, TeamBlogs, I meant blogs, with multiple authors, who are individual succesfull bloggers by themselves. You might be wondering am I not aware of LifeHacker, TechCrunch, EnGadget and such corporate blog giants. Yes, I’m aware and infact, there are many more TeamBlogs, but the number is far less from what-could-be-expected.

There are many individual bloggers just like me, who works passionately to produce quality content. Some, even makes a living out of their blogs. (Congrats to them ) Now, if these passionate-bloggers join together and blog together, won’t it be much much great ?

Have a glance at the Growth Pattern of a typical blogger:

• Installs (most probably) WordPress and starts posting
• With great vigour, joins places like MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Technorati etc.
• Brimming with enthusiasm, he/she comments at so may blogs of interest and gathers some real good friends.
• Then, it’s the turn for social-media.  Rushes to StumbleUpon, Digg etc. and is thirsty for a quick Digg Success (which is so-much unlikely).
• Gets acquainted with SEO, sometimes guest posts and attain a decent, stable traffic to his/her blog and then maintains it.

Every typical blogger undergo the above mentioned growth pattern. If he/she makes it to stand 6 months or more without fail, they are successful. Now, think about the potential that is possessed by a group of 5+ or 10+ successful bloggers working on a single blog !! This is exactly what made the aforementioned corporate blogs stand out as giants !!

There are some barriers when it comes to TeamBlogs, Revenue-Sharing being the most difficult. Even if the team is well set and closely knit, there is high risk, things can go weird. (After all, isn’t it real money!!)

So, I thought about a nifty way of sharing the revenue earned using AdSense. Use a plugin like AdMan or MightyAdsense. These plugins just needs you to enter the AdSense code and it’ll show ADs on the selected locations. Once, the blog have attained a steady traffic, keep rotating the AdSense codes of each author.

• i.e. for a fixed number of days, run the AD code of Author A, then for another time period, use the code of Author B, and so on..
• This way, there won’t be a problem sharing the revenue and each one gets their deserved amount right into their account.
• Another way could be using the AD code of a particular author for all his posts.

Was I making a fool of myself, writing out these? Are these tips already the industry standard? (If yes, yippee, I’ve came up with an idea myself, that is the industry standard !!)