With over one hundred million unique websites on the Internet it’s hard not to feel lost.  As casual, and even sophisticated Internet users, there is often a major disconnect between the tools and applications that we want to be using to make our lives easier and richer (but have no idea exist), and the sub-standard ones that we actually use (for lack of a better option), or alternatively, refuse to use for poor quality and design reasons.

As part of my effort to help you find meaning(ful applications) in your e-life, i’m hoping to start a regular column called The netGuide. In these blog posts I will briefly talk about some of my website findings from across the web and how they help solve old problems in new and creative ways.  The caveat is that although they may be new to me, they may not be to you – but hopefully this is the exception rather than the rule.

Website: SocialSpark
Category: Advertising and Blogging
Web Traffic: From nothing in the fall of 2007 to ranked 5,344 globally according to Alexa.

Why Care: SocialSpark is a website that facilitates the efficient exchange of pay-per-blog advertising. One of the distinguishing features of the website is its ad marketplace, where advertisers outline the word of mouth message they want produced, medium (text or video), and the price they are willing to pay for it (e.g. $9 to say XYZ).

Bloggers review these opportunities and self-select the topics that they want to write about on their personal blog.  Once a listing has been selected, the blogger submits their blog post and website name to SocialSpark, which allows advertisers to review the message, the website (i.e. its nature and web traffic), and the audience demographics for approval.  This provides the advertiser with final control over the message and the audience that it is being distributed to, while also employing a powerful mass-micro broadcast.

Word of mouth is considered one of the most powerful forms of advertising, so it makes sense that someone would attempt to package and re-sell it.  P&G’s duo of Tremors (for teens), Vocalpoint (for moms), as well as BzzAgent, have been successful in targetting Influencers by putting product samples in their hands, enhancing their user experience, and letting the user talk about the product. I see websites like SocialSpark as being the evolution, or at least the heir, to word-of-mouth marketing: where there are clear financial incentives for bloggers to participate, and advertisers have a direct channel to ‘buy’ authentic sounding opinions that support the product, and which specifically target the desired audience.

My questions for you:

• Does this have ethical ramifications?
• Will this impact the way people react to blogger based product opinions?
• Given that the Net Gen values integrity and is willing to scrutinize, could this backfire for advertisers??

Let me know what you think, and if you have a good website for a NetGuide post, please comment!