The best thing about Shared Reviews is that you can get paid to clown around a little. I just got my “Yoga Is Better Than Crack Cocaine” review approved. The whole point of the site is to make money through pageviews, so anything a little offbeat, controversial, or otherwise entertaining seems likely to be approved (within reasonable good taste, I assume).

The most potential I see for clowning here is with their video feature. You can upload video for each review you do, so…asking a Yoga teacher why Yoga really is better than crack cocaine might be fun. Calling up an ex-girlfriend you haven’t spoken to in five years and asking for the $500 she owes you could be a great supplement to my review on Yahoo Voice (internet-”phone” service), for example. Really, the possibilities seem endless.

I’m not sure what kind of money we reviewers are gonna draw in once the site goes full-blast. It’s going to be a shared-revenue site, so anything viral you can do is gonna help. And videos are about the most viral thing going on right now, and they don’t require medication. And I think they’re gonna be a lot of fun.

My point? Get over to SharedReviews and have a little fun!

A lot of us who’d signed up were excited about the prospect of making $150 for 75 reviews+ ad revenue, especially since each review only needed to be 125 words. Then the “beta cash” started to run out, and word went around that they were 2-3 weeks behind in approving reviews. I lost a lot of excitement (and hope for money…) and cut out at five reviews, then waited to see what would happen.

Today I got paid.

Not a lot–ten bucks–but there’s another hundred and forty where that came from. And I can do it in a couple of afternoons. I’m not entirely sure when I’ll get paid, but right now it seems like money in the bank.

Now if you’ll excuse me–I’ve gotta go write…

The upfront payment on this guy was $3.02. I submitted another article at the same time. They paid $4.26 for it.

We’ll see what the pageviews say next week.

There are also a few other sites that don’t look completely depressing. I’ll review these sites as I become involved with them.

Till then, I’ve got a few more articles to crank out–and another few to really work on!

Brad

Yes, if you already read the magazines they want abstracts for. Then, it can be a good way to make a few extra bucks off of reading you already do. The first 30 listings in the “calls for content” section are dominated by NY Times, Fortune, and Newsweek. So if you already read hi-profile magazines, it can’t hurt to take a few minutes and write a short summary and mini-review of the articles you’ve read. But it doesn’t look like a great way to make money if you don’t already read those magazines. Especially since there’s no guarantee you’ll get paid.

That’s right, Brijit.com looks at three abstracts for each article, and only chooses one. I have no idea what the competition’s like. If you know what you’re doing, having ‘only’ 1-in-3 odds can pretty much guarantee your success in some places. I have very little experience with Brijit.com, but chances are high that it’s not one of those places.

Check it out if you want to…for some of you, it might be a good way to have fun with what you already read, and maybe make a few bucks in the process.

As for me–well, I’ve gotta get back to the ol’ article grind…

They do give very conflicting messages sometimes about the articles you submit. One of my articles got a “your headline is too long” followed by a “we’d like to offer an upfront payment, but first you need to follow our suggestions” message. Great! I’ve been studying headlines for two years now, no problem making a shorter, searchable headline. It took me all of about twenty seconds to shorten and re-submit the article.

Two minutes later, I get a “we’re sorry but your content is something people won’t search for.” Waitaminute…ah well. It only took me an hour to write…(yes, I do need to work on that speed).

All the same, they are an up-front paying market (for some things…), and you can get paid within the week. Which, for those of us who quit our jobs two weeks before the rent is due, is pretty important.

So far I’ve been offered between $3.02-$4.26 for my articles (the $4.26 one was for my first one by the way. Don’t know what my decrease in skill is all about). If you’re the kind of writer who’s determined to make it no matter what, and who actually enjoys spending 8-12 hours a day writing (like I do), then you can certainly get the bills payed with Associated Content.

Then again, it might help if you live in a low-rent area.

There are definitely better ways to make money for your writing, if you can write well and use Wordtracker (or whatever keyword tool you like). Most of them seem to take a little longer to pay, though, and paying the rent on time…well, it’s just one of those things I’ve always done. Well, almost always…

I had a fun time–I reviewed my old Jeep that I wore the hell out of. I accidentally put it in the “economy car” category(!) but was able to easily go back and fix it.

The review template has plenty of fill-in ratings–milage, cargo capacity, attractiveness, etc–and also lets you create up to six of your own. One of mine was “how damned good I looked in this vehicle,” which of course was a five (out of five). When you’re tired of staring at your word-processor, it might be fun to check out what other people have come up with.

Catches:

You’re (currently) limited as to the number of articles you can write. The limit was 50 reviews/person, but now appears to be 75 (I’ve also been sitting at this computer for several hours and it’s now 2:20 a.m. so…forgive me if I’m not entirely sure on this one).

The whole site is in “beta” mode. They claim to only have about two grand to be able to spend on reviews at the moment–it’s their “beta money”. This happened in October, then suddenly the accountants came down from the mountain and blessed them with $10,000 more to by articles with. So I’m wondering if this isn’t a “I’ll raise the price to $97 if you don’t buy it today I swear!” false-urgency type tactic.

It’ll apparently be a revenue-sharing site when it’s fully up and running, which means that you’ll get a percentage of the ad money they make from your review page. No word yet whether they’ll be paying upfront once they go to full launch.

“Beta” mode also means it’s not a full launch, and not all features are available yet. There’s going to be some type of voting system which will somehow affect how you get paid by way of page views and votes and advertising and…well…check it out for yourself. There’s some kind of diagram for it that seems like it should make sense but that I really don’t understand.

I’ll tell you what I do understand, though. $2 per review. Yes, it’s only1.6 cents a word…but reviews go pretty fast, and 125 words ain’t exactly National Novel Writing Month. And it pays better than what I’m being told about most places. Pass it up, or…

Here’s their wonderful bubbly banner: