We have been extremely busy these last 6 months at SharedReviews HQ. From completing a site re-design to adding many new features, fixing tons of bugs all the way to ensuring the health of the business as a whole, we’ve been working diligently for the day we could announce the end of the revenue sharing hiatus forced upon us late last year.
Although the company has had positive cash flow for some time, everything past bare bone operational costs has been dedicated to paying down member outstanding balances from last year. This has meant some sacrifices for the business, including the temporary departure of some great people and limited availability for the rest. I have been able to continue to dedicate myself full time to SharedReviews, but like everyone else I’ve sacrificed more than you know to see us through to this day. This is why I wanted to extend a very special and personal thanks to those of you that have remained active during the hiatus. Your support, feedback, and involvement inspired us to sacrifice no matter the cost until we came through and our promises could become reality.
With that being said, It is with great excitement that I announce a definitive launch date for the all new SharedReviews Cash Rewards Program. We are going to process the final back payment on all outstanding balances over $10 the first week of June. During the month of June we will continue to work on some changes to the site, including adding more social features as well as finishing and testing the redesigned cash rewards system before the launch on July 1st, 2009. This means that July will be the first official month of earning, and all payments for the new program will be processed via paypal 30 days after the last day of the month.
What are the changes to how you earn on SharedReviews?
Community Cash Pool: We needed to find a model that allowed us to be able to predict our costs while also giving every member a clear idea of how much they could earn before a monthly cycle began. Now, instead of a portion of company revenue being allocated after a given month is finished, we will pre-announce a dedicated amount before a cycle begins. This will range from one or two thousand at minimum to the potential for much, much, more depending on available cash flow as well as any sponsor contributions or incentives we may have in a given month.
Ranking: Voting will continue to be an integral part of SharedReviews, but the ranking of reviews in each category will also include how popular that review is outside of the community. This means we will be tracking and displaying how many unique visitors your review receives and calculating this with member votes to determine your review’s “Popularity Score”. We aren’t leaving this number to chance though; many new tools will be available for you to promote your reviews on social networks, blogging platforms, news sites, bookmarking services and more. Just like voting, your traffic success will be determined by your strategy and effort where we will provide many tools, resources, and how to articles to get you started.
Contests: The contests we have maintained during the hiatus have been so successful that we’ve decided to continue them even after July 1st. This means that most votes cast, most published reviews, and most votes received will continue with new contests released each month to keep things interesting. The first new contest that starts June 1st will be a $50 prize for the most voted video review to celebrate all of the video enhancements and fixes we recently launched.
We’ll announce more details as we get closer to the July 1st launch date. As always, feel free to contact us directly or post any questions or feedback you may have in the forum.