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SocialSpark: all it’s cracked up to be?
By Wolfie | April 20, 2008
First of all, let me say that this post is an an attempt to give you a quick overview of the recently launched SocialSpark phenomena (if, indeed, that is what it is), as well as highlight some good and bad points about the whole thing.
Second of all, let me apologise for the fact that this post is a bit long. Like Topsy, it just sort of grew.
What is SocialSpark?
PayPerPost was one of the first (if not the first) system to put bloggers in touch with advertisers, for the creation of sponsored posts. Their stated aim was to “Change the world, one blog at a time”. SocialSpark - brought to you by the same company, Izea, behind PayPerPost - builds on that premise, and adds a community element to allow bloggers and advertisers to interact with each other to a much greater degree. In the same vein as Facebook, you create a profile, add friends, etc, at the same time as promoting your blog, taking Opportunities and generally being a ‘monetized’ blogger.
Anyone can view your profile (see screenshot) and, from there, can then see the advertisers you’ve worked with, the Opportunities you’ve taken and the traffic that your blog gets. Advertisers looking for bloggers to write about their product, service or website can use this information to place their advertising with those blogs that are likely to give them the best return on investment.
Having only just gone beta and launched to the general public (the invite-only alpha was running for about a month or so, to iron out some of the technical issues), the list of available Opportunities (see screenshot) isn’t that long yet, but is growing steadily. In a development on the PayPerPost model, Opportunities now include not only sponsored posts but blog sponsorships (like the one that is currently running on The New Wolfs Howl) and Sparks - which are a non-paying ideas for bloggers to write about, designed to get the ‘blogosphere’ buzzing.
In another new development, Opportunities (see screenshot) now have bonus payments and dynamic pricing. In addition, you can queue for an available slot or, if you don’t qualify for the Opportunity, you can ask the advertiser to let you have a slot.
And when you’re done looking at the Opportunities, you can browse through the profiles of other users (see screenshot); see what blogs they write, how many advertisers they’re working with, add them to your friend list, add their blog to your BlogRoll (another new feature) and maybe even pick up some pointers on how to improve your own blog.
So that’s a brief overview of SocialSpark (click here to visit the site for yourself), but what’s it like to use? I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks now and in that time I’ve come across things I like, things I don’t like and things I’m undecided on. Let me walk you through a few.
The Good
In-post disclosure now required for all Opportunities: this is a biggy. One of the major complaints against PayPerPost from vocal commentators like Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis was that by not requiring in-post disclosure, PayPerPost was encouraging bloggers to mislead their readers. The merits of that argument went backwards and forwards around the blogging world for quite some time and pretty much everyone had their opinion on it. For myself, I always include in-post disclosure, but I was concerned that a number of PayPerPost advertisers would specify no in-post disclosure in their requirements. Happily, with SocialSpark that is no longer possible.
Blog sponsorships: even with in-post disclosure now required, there are those that don’t agree with sponsored posts. With the introduction of blog sponsorships, anyone can now earn some money from their blog without needing to write paid posts. Blog sponsorship takes on site advertising to a new level and is an easy way to introduce yourself to the world of SocialSpark.
More transparency: by giving site visitors - both bloggers and advertisers - more information about the SocialSpark community, there is much more openness about who’s doing what, with whom and for how much. SocialSpark is designed to be much more of an open system than PayPerPost ever was.
The Bad
Can’t import PPP info: I imagine that most PayPerPost users will migrate to SocialSpark, so it would have been useful to be able to import your PPP account into SocialSpark. Sadly, this is not possible so you have to re-set everything up (including getting your blogs re-approved). This is a time-consuming step (for both bloggers and SocialSpark staff) that could have been avoided. Also, by not being able to import your PPP account, your earning history, Opportunity history, etc all start from scratch again.
Props: this is a feature that was not part of the PayPerPost experience, and allows users to give each other a ‘thumbs up’ - either for the user or for their blog. Unfortunately, as a user while you can see how many props you’ve been given, you can’t see who gave them to you. So, reciprocal propping is out.
Dynamic pricing: in the PayPerPost model, Opportunties came with one price. In SocialSpark they come with dynamic pricing, which means that from one day to the next the value of the Opportunity may go up or down. Trouble is, until this post on the PPP blog on Thursday, no-one really knew how dynamic pricing worked. Having read how it’s supposed to work, it seems needlessly complicated.
Opportunity requirements not always obvious: again, the SocialSpark model is different from the PayPerPost one in this area. SocialSpark will tell you whether or not you qualify for an Opportunity, but unlike PayPerPost will not show you a list of the advertisers criteria. There’s an Opportunity at the moment that I don’t qualify for, but can’t work out why that would be since SocialSpark doesn’t give me the information.
Queuing for Opportunities: as I mentioned earlier, one of the new features is that you can add yourself to a queue for Opportunities that have had all their slots taken. This is a great development. What’s not so great is that you get no indication of how long the queue is, how many slots there might be or what your chances of grabbing one are.
Leaving comments: in another new development, users can now comment on Opportunities. This is a good way to ask questions about the requirements, etc, but a lot of users seem to be using the facility to ask general questions about SocialSpark. There seems to be no way to leave comments or ask questions about the site as a whole, other than submitting a support ticket - which isn’t necessarily the most appropriate method. There is a link to the Izea forums, but I think most users would be better off with something that didn’t require them to go off site.
Video tutorials: it’s probably just because they haven’t had time to produce them yet, but there are links throughout the site to video tutorials on how to use SocialSpark. Trouble is, all you get is a “Coming Soon” message. If they’re not ready yet, don’t put the links in, surely?
Where is it?: to a certain extent, I think there’s too much going on around the site and it can be less than obvious how to do certain things. For instance, adding blogs to your BlogRoll or adding friends to your Favourite 9.
The Not Sure
Social network number 3,204,679: well, maybe that’s an exaggeration but there are already a large number of social networks out there and I wonder if we really need another one? Indeed, I wonder if SocialSpark really is one, or is it just an extended blogger information resource? Whereas in PayPerPost you couldn’t see anything about other bloggers, now you can, and you can send them props and add them as friends. But does that make it a social network?
No follow tags: as well as insisting on in-post disclosure, SocialSpark requires that all sponsored links be “nofollow”. This is apparently to keep search engines (well, Google anyway) happy by stopping advertisers taking advantage of PageRank and incoming links. But does it really achieve that aim, and there also seems to be quite a bit of resistance to it in the blogging community. (As an experiment, I’ve “nofollow’-ed all the links in this post).
Questions
Moving from PayPerPost to SocialSpark has also raised a few questions, at least for me, which I haven’t yet seen addressed by any of the Izea team. The prime one among these, I suppose, is what happens to PayPerPost now? It’s unclear whether SocialSpark is intended as a replacement or a service to run alongside. If both systems are to continue, how will Izea differentiate them, from an advertisers point of view? SocialSpark offers more information about the bloggers, so I would think advertisers would be more likely to place their Opportunities there - but then, how will PayPerPost bring in enough advertising to keep going? As a blogger, I’d prefer to use just one system rather than two so will be using SocialSpark more than PayPerPost from now on. I believe that many others will be like me, too.
Categories: Blogging, Technology |
Tags: Izea, PayPerPost, SocialSpark
Subscribe by: Email or RSS :: Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. No reproduction without prior permission. :: Disclaimer: All opinions in this blog are either my own or completely made up; you decide.
:: Dave from Welcome Back Rosenthal had this to say:
Well I think you may have the number one piece on this issue at this point. I did some research about a week ago when somebody asked me if I was getting my blog ready for SS, and I asked her what was that.
I discovered as much as I could from the “outside.” But it’s great you joined up and had a good up close look at things. Nice work.
Dave from Welcome Back Rosenthal’s most recent blog post: Weirdest MySpace Comment I’ve Ever Gotten
5:22 am :: April 21st, 2008:: Wolfie had this to say:
@Dave from Welcome Back Rosenthal:
8:38 pm :: April 21st, 2008Thanks Dave. The whole SocialSpark thing is a bit of a learning curve at the moment - for both users and the company. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.
:: Earthlingorgeous had this to say:
Great post… I’ve learned a lot and I agree with some points you raised in here…but something pop-out that confused me the “no-follow” thingy. Please do tell what happened to your experiment too. thanks.
[Wolfie edit: I've removed a couple of smileys from this comment, because for some reason they really screw up the way the comment is displayed]
Earthlingorgeous’s most recent blog post: Mother Earth Needs Your Help!
1:14 pm :: April 21st, 2008:: Wolfie had this to say:
@Earthlingorgeous:
8:41 pm :: April 21st, 2008Glad I’ve been able to help you out. Remains to be seen whether ‘nofollow’ really does appease the search engines.
:: Cynthia Blue had this to say:
I just wish they would get around to approving my blogs!
[Wolfie edit: I've removed a smiley from this comment, because for some reason they really screw up the way the comment is displayed]
6:47 pm :: April 23rd, 2008:: Wolfie had this to say:
@Cynthia Blue:
6:59 pm :: April 23rd, 2008Yes, it took a little while to get mine approved as well. Even though I’ve had the same blog on PPP for months. On the whole, not a good cross-over process.