The Journey To The IPO
OK! This will rank as one of the strangest ReviewMe reviews I’ve ever done. Why is that? Because the blog requesting the review, IPOJourney.com, has a grand total of two posts. That’s right, two posts.
It’s very easy to review a blog when it has a lot of information for me to critique. However, giving me two posts to work with doesn’t give me a lot to write about. However, IPO Journey doesn’t want me to write about the blog. Instead, they want me to tell you about the concept behind the blog.
What Is IPO Journey About
Using the tag line “Let’s try to get rich together,” IPO Journey seeks to get a bunch of people together, build a company from scratch, and have it become an IPO or be bought out. The foundation as to what the business will be based around is the domain name www.insane.com. Those that help build the business will in turn receive shares for their work. If someone designs the logo, he will receive shares in the company. If someone creates software used by the company, he will receive shares. If someone comes up with a business idea on what Insane.com can do to make money, he will receive shares.
If all goes well, Insane.com will become a big hit and everyone involved will get rich from the IPO or buyout. IPO Journey will be the blog that documents the trip from concept to IPO.
What Is Wrong With IPO Journey
Where do I begin? First, we don’t know who started IPO Journey or Insane.com. The site is not associated with any names and the blog has no contact information. The person who sent the review request never gave his or her name. The two posts at IPO Journey lack “posted by” information. A WHOIS search for Insane.com revealed that the owner is hidden behind a private registration service. IPOJourney.com is registered to a company called Net Marketing 2000, which is a one page site with no real contact information.
Not only do we not know who runs IPO Journey, we don’t know how to become a part of the concept. There is no sign-up form or “how to get involved” page. I can only assume that you participate by commenting. The author does ask for business ideas in the first decision post.
If the object of IPO Journey is to get people together in a collaborative effort to start a new company and take it to IPO, why does the blog have Google ads? That seems completely counter productive to me. The object is to get people to join the IPO effort, not leave the site by clicking on a Google ad.
At the end of the day, I cannot figure out if IPO Journey is serious about what they’re doing or not. The entire project seems slapped together without much thought or care. The idea of a collaborative effort to take a concept from startup to IPO is a good one. However, unless IPO Journey completely revamps the site to create a lot more trust and transparency (and a way for people to participate), they’re not going to be the one to do it.
- Posted in Reviews, The Net
- 120 comments what's your take?
I agree. The google ads send a message that this is not really about trying to get people to help but rather as a gimmick to get more traffic.
Reply to this commentThe owner of insane.com is the owner of stockmarketblog.com. I follow that blog for a while. And he mentioned on that blog that he wanted to sell the insane.com domain. stockmarketbog.com originally posted his day trading records and later changed to post stock related information. I believe the purpose of ordering this review me is to market the insance.com domain.
Reply to this commentHe ovbiously knows something about blogging, he just needs to get his thoughts togethor!
Reply to this commentIt’s a good concept, a creative one atleast. Sounds similar to Agloco in that its giving portions of its stake to people. Because of the structure, I don’t think it’ll fly. A for effort though
Reply to this commentThe idea isn’t developed enough, he’s ordered the review prematurely
Reply to this commentThis is a sad state of affairs when a publisher shells out $300 for a review of a completely undeveloped and untrustworthy product.
Reply to this commentHow about the ‘reviewer’ who forgets that there is a ‘reject’ button specifically for these type of sites?
Reply to this commentHow about the people that bitch that all reviews are positive so the whole review process is a scam?
There’s nothing wrong with a negative review.
Reply to this commentI completely agree. There’s nothing wrong with a negative review at all.
Reply to this comment
I can see why John wrote this review. I don’t think there will be a lot of 2-post blog ‘disasters’ asking for a review from John Chow dot Com in the future. Nice way to set an example and make some cash along the way.. What emoticon should I post here? I know : 
Reply to this commentYeah, especially because his reviewme price will keep rising higher and higher.
Reply to this commenthahaha very evil
Reply to this commentBut if you read the blog now, the guy’s already improved his strategy based on this review. If anything, I’d say there will be more 2 post blogs requesting reviews since John can shake you up and get you headed in the right direction.
There are cheaper ways to accomplish this, but to each their own…
Reply to this commentwell said that man
Reply to this commentWhy would John have rejected this review? He had a lot to say on the topic and was able to use it as a prime example of what can happen when you don’t heed a lot of the advice he publishes here. In my mind it’s a perfect fit for a review at johnchow.com
Reply to this commenta $300 backlink is what they got
Reply to this commentYah that is one damn expensive backlink. I think he will find out real quick that his return on investment was not very good.
Reply to this commentExactly, $300 for a link and a good dose of bad reputation is not worth it
Reply to this commentHe must be making some $ with the other site…I hope!
Reply to this commentMaybe he has I nice day job?
Reply to this commentYes, like John is going to turn down a review me, we’re talking about
here!
(I’m going to officially designate that as the ‘John’ smiley.
Reply to this commentAll I can honestly say is…Wow…
Reply to this commentI was just wondering ,if you knew the website had nothing to offer why did you accept the reviewme offer? I believe you have the option to deny them?
From your post it doesn’t seem like you liked any aspect of the site or the blog in general. Why take their money for it?
Just curious that’s all.
Reply to this commentHe is evil plain and simple.. They for some reason wanted to spend money on him he took it. He probly wants to break last month’s 8.5k in earnings..
Reply to this commentIsn’t that the point of ‘ReviewMe’? From ReviewMe’s own FAQ:
Reviews are meant to be both positive and negative. If someone asks you to review their crap site why should you have to reject them?
Reply to this commentUmm…to avoid the kind of comments you see on this post for instance.
Plus I think it limits the credibility of the blogger. I like JC.com a lot, the guy is on my IM list. But I didn’t expect to see a review just for the sake of writing the kind of post he did.
I commend him for giving constructive points, but I feel he could have just denied the post and told the guys to come back when they have more going on.
Reply to this commentI think it makes his credibility better. You now know that he is not going to give a good review of something that doesn’t desrve it.
Reply to this commentI completely agree. If you read nothing but positive reviews, you start to get the feeling that the author is just trying to make himself more appealing to get more submissions. This demonstrates without a doubt that if you ask John for a review, he will give you an honest review, whether you like the end result or not.
Reply to this commentAs far as the comments on this post are concerned, I think that stimulating discussion on a controversial topic is fantastic from a blogger’s perspective. Why wouldn’t John want people from both sides of the issue discussing it intelligently on his blog?
Reply to this commentAre you going to stop reading JohnChow.com because of this post? If not, then it doesn’t matter…
Not trying to be harsh, but I’m just saying… John is about making money with this blog. As much as he can, he has said that before and that’s exactly what he’s doing.
Reply to this commentI’m with you on this one. Although it is quite remarkable that someone would shell out such a sum of money for what looks like nought return, I can’t fathom John’s reasoning for accepting to take the review on.
If you accept a review for the sake of the money, not the quality of the subject, you may find that the better sites/products/services will not want a piece of what could potentially be a bitter tasting cherry pie. Especially if they fear that they will come under attack. Although I think it only reasonable to expect a fair and balanced critique of my own product (should I want a review), I wouldn’t expect that the ‘paid’ reviewer would slam my product either (I would like to think he would decline to take me on if he didn’t like what I was offering).
Anyway, my 2 bob’s worth.
Reply to this comment“I wouldn’t expect that the ‘paid’ reviewer would slam my product either (I would like to think he would decline to take me on if he didn’t like what I was offering).”
If that’s the case then you should explore some of the other sponsored review programs out on the web. ReviewMe.com and a few others put no requirements on the tone of the review. Some other programs allow the advertisers to specify a tone.
You need to know what kind of program you’re signing up for before you shell money out. With regards to the person who purchased this review, he’s taken it very well, as I would expect from someone who would have solicited such a review.
As a side note I find it interesting that the person who paid for this seems perfectly content with his purchase yet so many onlookers are angry on his behalf for some reason…
Reply to this commentI accepted the review because the site is related to what I talk about - making money on the Internet. I am not required to give a positive review.
This was also a good chance for me to show that a sponsored review doesn’t have to be positive and that my opinions can not be sway by offers of money. Sometimes, learning what is bad can be more valuable than learning what is good.
Reply to this commentThats very true, if we only ever learnt what we should do we would do what we should do… but also what we shouldnt do! (that does make sence…. just!)
Reply to this commentIt’s good to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even better to learn from mistakes of others..
Reply to this comment$300 is $300. Especially at the monthly income recap.
Reply to this commentFor the concerns of monthly income recap - $150 is $150, other half goes to ReviewMe.
Reply to this commentSo true, 50% cut must start to sting when your review price climbs so high
Reply to this commentJust another thing. Reading paid reviews for sites which will not benefit me (or anyone else here), runs counter to why I visit. I am not slamming paid reviews (I have been supportive up till now), but the other reviews represented value to me as a reader and follower of this blog. Not sure how others feel.
Reply to this commentI think it sounds like an interesting idea, dont know how legitimate it is, either way, John shares a lot of good tips on how to make money on the internet, I think it is cool that he pockets some $$$’s for the review. Towards the top, he mentions that it is a reviewme review, so it is easy to just not read it if you are not interested in reading the reviews.
Reply to this commentI agree with you Ian. But I actually like the paid reviews - just feel there needs to be some quality control so readers feel they are being given useful advice, and advertisers trust that he will only review good, quality companies that deserve his attention (which ultimately gives them even more value for their buck).
Reply to this commentI think there a substantial amount of useful advice in this post. This website shows you exactly what happens when you dive in headfirst without considering any of the items that John’s always reminding us about. This is a perfect case study and to my mind fits in better with his regular content than any other sponsored post he’s done.
With regards to the good, quality companies, everyone who’s spending money on sponsored blogging is doing so with a program that they’re comfortable with. That’s why there are several competing programs out there.
Reply to this commentAll this buzz generated by this post (even though it’s negative) is actually good for the blog. People are talking…about him…there’s over 100 comments on this post. People are reading it and talking about it
Well done
Reply to this commentThis was easily one of the most valuable reviews I’ve seen John do, and he’s done some great ones. He gives some phenomenal advice that everyone ought to learn from. Maybe you think the advice he gave is so obvious as to be useless, but it’s clearly anything but obvious to most people out there. This person got WAY more than his $300 worth.
Reply to this commentThe person clearly has money to pay US$300 for a review, and that domain is quite a good quality domain, with a nice PR6, will be interesting to see how the project develops, and who the mystery person is behind it.
Reply to this commentI agree, that’s a really good PR considering what it is. Don’t know how it will turn out though with the foundation its currently on. Doesn’t seem very strong at all.
Reply to this commentHmmm - It seems I stand alone thinking that it is okay to give a bad review.
I think an honest bad review serves at least 2 purposes:
1. It means I will steer clear of investing my time in IPOJourney.com (the same as a bad review of any product).
2. It shows that JC is not just writing nice fluff because he is being paid.
I know the counter-argument to #2 is that he should only accept reviews from sites he likes - but $300 is still pretty cheap to get feedback that stops them wasting more money (they clearly weren’t being told anything useful by friends/family).
Reply to this commentI have gotten tired of all the reviews, but I commend John for this one. If you want a review, you deserve a review - good or bad. This site was absolutely deserving of a negative review for all the reasons mentioned. Would you want shares in a company run by someone who doesn’t think that far through things? I know I wouldn’t waste my time doing anything for a share of that.
I think the negative reviews give more credability to JC and I applaud him for writing them.
Reply to this commentI got tired of the constant reviews too, but the good thing is that every review has a moral behind it..
Reply to this commentIt’s true Joshua there are a LOT of review me’s here, but in all fairness John makes some very good posts about online business as well.
Reply to this commentYou are not alone Gath! I agree with you
Reply to this commentI think John reviewed the site because it was relevant to his blog viewers. The IPO site is related to making money online and whether John says it’s good or bad, people will still go from this site to theirs.
It is somewhat of a unique concept with a highly memorable domain name attached. $300 is a small price to pay for some PR in a place where many potential clients lie, in my opinion.
Reply to this commenti agree that if this guy is serious about “taking it to IPO” he should take off the ads and maintain his blog as a purely informational source.
that being said, it seems like a unique idea and he does own a pretty high ranking domain, so theres still a chance of legitimacy, however small.
Reply to this commentI think it was a good idea to accept the review, now we all know that ReviewMe doesn’t always have a positive review. It makes it more legit to me, companies will now know that John is willing to give an unbiased opinion.
Reply to this commentJohn’s not one to turn a review down regardless of good or bad. Well, atleast I suspect.
Reply to this commentI’m sure he turns down a lot of offers. Otherwise we’d be reading 3-5 reviews per day on JCdC..
Reply to this commentMonetize Everything
Reply to this commentI think John Chow should start monetizing blog comments! Say….$5 for a comment?
Reply to this commentHe’d be one rich man!
Reply to this commentHe’d be one rich man with no comments on his posts
Reply to this commentIf you check out the site IPOJourney.com, you will see the main guy is actually reasonably happy with the review JC gave him.
To quote:
Can’t argue with that.
Reply to this commentWell, in that case it sounds like he got his money’s worth. And that’s probably because he got a spike in traffic.
Reply to this commentI bet all the negative buzz going on at this thread is sending a pile of traffic his way!
Reply to this commentThere are now four posts on IPOJourney-dot-com. I’m actually curious what he/she/they will come up with next.
Reply to this commentindeed it looks as if hes happy with the purchase.
wish i had 300 to throw around like that
Reply to this commentinsane.com should be about how insane ‘that guy’ is. He spent $300 to show up is bad idea…
Reply to this commentThe idea isn’t awful. It’s actually clever and innovative. The implementation is awful.
Reply to this commentWow! $300 to get your awful site slammed by John Chow. I would have written about how bad the site is for free!
Kumiko
Reply to this commentits going to be a smash hit
Reply to this commentLOL!
Reply to this commentGo for it Kumiko, I doubt he’ll mind the extra publicity. Remember, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Reply to this commentAs much traffic as he can get will only help him out…show him what’s up
Reply to this commentI wouldn’t have written about how bad the site is for free… maybe for $50-$100
Reply to this commentI support the decision of John Chow to do this review. It was interesting, plus there are lessons to be learned here - such as if you want to market something, make sure you know what it is first!
Reply to this commentagreed i like hearing about sites with stupid ideas so i can laugh at them
Reply to this commentSome stupid sites turn out to be great in the future.. any examples
Reply to this commentthat dude is insane. people will only join if they have a since of security and they wont have one if they dont even know the owners name.
Reply to this commentI thought the prospect of the general idea sounded OK, but having read how much of a scatter brain he is I’m glad I never put any time into it!
Reply to this commentFirst he had the 300 bucks which was good for John Chow. Why would I refuse 300 bucks to tell you your site isn’t all that.
Reply to this commentFor most, they’d not be too happy doing that review but I would have done it .Hey if anyone wants to offer me the 300 bucks now ,I am ready.Just don’t blame me if I say something not nice.
monetize the comments! $5 for each comment!
Reply to this commentThat would kill the comments, but he could put ads in the comments - like Kontera…
Reply to this commentI’m not sure how that could be accomplished
Reply to this commentguess what, the domain name is listed for sale both on sedo.com and afternic.com. See for yourself:
http://www.afternic.com/insane.com
http://www.sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=insane.com&tracked=&partnerid=17433&language=e
Reply to this commentJohn - did you try firing off an email to get more details before writing the review? I don’t have any issues with you taking the money if the product really is that bad, but you could have given them a bit of a chance to explain themselves and to get VFM
Reply to this commentWhen requesting a review, you the reviewee has every opportunity to give more information to the reviewer. In addition, JC has his email addy available. The burden in this case needs to be on the person asking for the review.
He clearly did not think it all through, which is a reflection on him, not John.
Reply to this commentJust because they didn’t think it through isn’t a good enough reason to take their money! Well, not for me anyway
Reply to this commentIm thinking someone just wasted $300 bucks.
It is definitely that persons fault. If you dont want a negative review, dont have so many faults in your site/idea.
Personally I would feel a bit bad about taking this persons money because they are clearly not getting the attention they want for the money they paid. Only thing i can think is that they didnt know what they were doing when they ordered this review. I would probably try and give a portion of the money back and tell them to order another review when they get their crap together. With review me involved im not sure thats possible though.
Reply to this commentJudging on the site, the review isn’t the only thing he hasn’t thought through…
Reply to this commentThere was no email for me to contact. My ReviewMe control panel just shows the site URL and the message from the customer. Most customer will leave their contact info in the message.
Reply to this commentHey, if somebody’s going to be an idiot and hand you $300 to discuss a poorly-conceived web site, why shouldn’t you take it?
Of course, as a public good, you could use some of that money for a contest….
Reply to this commentThis whole discussion is useless now that the reviewee expressed his great satisfaction with the review
Reply to this commentI guess publicity is publicity — the site is getting a lot of attention and perhaps that’s that main objective.
Reply to this commentLooks like the guy/girl is shooting in all directions: trying to launch a new concept of making money but at the same time listing the insane.com domain for sale…
Reply to this commentThe site’s actually picking up on content and readers. Slow but steady — this could be the start of something.
Reply to this commentSee, best $300 he ever spent!
Reply to this commentEh I went to the site for 2 seconds then left.
Reply to this commentI see nothing wrong in reviewing a bad site, as long as it falls within the subject of this blog: making money oline. Which it does, in this case.
Reply to this commentThat’s the purpose of the review. If John has to visit the site, read the posts and then decide not to review it, didn’t he just basically review it?
My question is, when you get a reviewme request, how much of the site do you look at before you decide to review it?
Look if someone walks up to you and says I’ll give you $300 to try this new Cola drink and tell me what you think, would you do it? You can’t drink it and then say you I don’t review Cherry drinks and walk away. Well, I guess you could, but that would be stupid.
Although the site had 2 posts, John still gave his usually high quality review with insight on what they should be doing. He could have easily just blasted the two posts and talked about the site layout or something. He did research to find out the registar, owner’s name, etc… He still earned his $300 (or rather $150).
Reply to this commentI would also add that it was well worth it from the advertiser’s perspective as well. I don’t usually visit John’s reviewed websites unless they’re of personal interest, but I had to visit this one just because of all of the discussion. I’ll be that he got more traffic from this than most reviewed websites get.
Reply to this commentlet him make money.. why are you people pissed off?
Reply to this comment