And this post is sponsored by ANYwebcam.com Personal
The experiment continues. This was the first review offered me by ReviewMe, and naturally, in the spirit of experimentation, I accepted like a shot.
So, basically, it’s a tool to add a MySpace widget to your profile (it also supports other social networks) that gives you live access to your webcam from your own page, and obviously a feed from another user of the service. It is a free service that you can sign up for here. You ultimately pay with adverts on the website, it seems. Using Anywebcam is apparently pretty simple: just copy a Javascript into your MySpace profile and bob is your uncle, as they say. If you use MySpace to communicate with people who are geographically displaced from you, then this could be a real boon.
While mainstream users of MySpace might benefit from this sort of thing, there’s a good reason for many of them being put off by it. It is restricted to adult users, 18 and over. There are porn and dating sites advertised on the top banner of the site, and elsewhere. Maybe that is a good indicator of some of the people who want this sort of thing. It was interesting to see that “Over 8 million girls in [my] area are SEEKING SEX — FREE Reviews!!”. I wonder who conducts these reviews and the methodology for their results? As I understand it, there are only 4mn women in London. I do hope that they were not duped.
I’m pretty confident that there are healthy (!?) sex-chatline companies working off the back of MySpace and that this sort of service is pretty attractive to them. It’s really a shame, though, that a potentially useful tool should be drawn down to this sort of level. Judging from the marketing graphics, they started off as a service geared at teens, then realised the real money was in sex.
The site has a pretty massive T&C document that I haven’t read. Since it comprises acres of text, I would be surprised if any registered users had read it. Always a great sign of a company to trust.
I kind of wonder why Anywebcam hasn’t yet been killed off by MySpace themselves, in the same way that they have killed off other third-party widgets. Perhaps because they are not yet ready with an equivalent service themselves, or are anxious about possible sexual abuse and prostitution connotations to the service.
People reacting to the Techcrunch notice about ReviewMe and elsewhere said that it would be unlikely that people who posted negative reviews would get hired again. I’m not being negative deliberately. This is my honest (negative) opinion about this service — and, as you can see, it’s not quite as thorough a review as it might have been. Let’s see.
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This is the “pay review” I’ve seen so far (other than the initial reviews).
Congrats on staying honest :)
gah, should be “this is the first pay review”
Ok — me too … that was the first “pay per post” that I’ve seen through ReviewMe.com.
Ian, I’ll be honest. I like your blog. I like the kind of “I know what I’m talking about” vibe you’ve got going on here, because not only do you have credentials that many of us don’t (moi aussi!), but you also write like you know what you’re talking about.
And dude, you don’t look like you’re the kind of guy who reviews these kinds of widgets. In fact, when was the last time you did a review at all.
Its not a bad review, its just — well, it looks out of place.
From a “brand management” strategy [if you were into that sort of thing; if not, please ignore the rest], it almost looks incongruent with your “brand identity”.
I’m not sure what to make of it, only it gives me the same feeling as if I saw a monkey doing laps at the gym. Kind of odd — because I know it could, but it usually doesn’t.
Cheers
t @ dji
Tony — thanks for a thoughtful reply (and your kind words!). The ‘monkey doing laps at the gym’ thing is a great simile!
Given the UK/US exchange rate this kind of thing can only make me beer money unless my alexa ranking shoots through the roof all of a sudden. So I’m not really incentivised to do too many more laps round the gym, if you know what I mean.
Well, I’m glad you liked the simile … sometimes I’mi not afraid to admit that I feel like a monkey sometimes myself, though.
All the best with your beer money though; that stuff can get expensive ;)
Cheers
t @ dji
Thanks for being honest. I’ll be honest too. One more paid post and I’m unsubscribing.
Kudos to you!
You see Anywebcam for exactly what they are -
An adult website placing live adult cams in to a kids website (Myspace).
Since Myspace is a kids site, I’d hate to see any one send them to Anywebcam to get an account for this embedded cam.
The worst part is that Anywebcam has NO barriers in place to keep kids out. Apparently they WANT Kids in their adult nude chat site eh?
Anywebcam is NOT properly labeled as the Adult Site that it actually is.
Your open honesty and thoroughness of review is much appreciated,
Ducky