Much to my surprise, I received an email today stating that I had been selected to get to try out SocialSpark. I have to say that despite a few bugs, the system is working wonderfully.

If it weren’t for the fact that I’m not allowed to disclose any of my experiences or specific details, I’d be flooding you with tons of screenshots and information. However, I feel this is the perfect time to go over some of the features of SocialSpark that have been confirmed to the public.

There are probably plenty of you out there who are dying to know; is it as good as they’ve played it up to be? It definitely has the potential to be. In the end, it all relies on how well SocialSpark takes root with the public. I can see that it will easily be accepted by many bloggers, and it seems to me that most advertisers would love the system, but we’ll have to wait and see.

How is SocialSpark Better than PayPerPost?
It would be very pointless to release a whole new website if it was nothing better than the one it is succeeding. Trust me, there are a ton of great new features, and I’ll go over a few of my favorite new features now. I can’t go into to many details because I have been asked not to reveal specific experiences, but I’m sure these things are fine to mention because they were shown in the public video at SocialSpark.com (I know I’m not really giving you anything new here, but at least I’m confirming that SocialSpark is real, right? )

Blog Sponsorship - Paid Daily
How do you like the idea of getting paid $1.00 or more a day just to have a bar along the bottom of your reader’s screen saying who your blog is sponsored by? This new feature has great potential, and I am sure that it will attract many bloggers who are comfortable with more traditional styles of advertising. I also think that the more traffic you have and the more targeted your blog’s audience is, the more you’ll receive for ads like these. I wouldn’t be surprised to see bloggers getting as much as $5+ a day through this feature. It really looks like a great deal for both the advertisers and the bloggers!

Friends and Messages System
This is where the “Social” part of SocialSpark comes in. You can find your fellow bloggers/advertisers in the system and add them to your friends list. You can message back and forth and build new friendships, as long as you don’t try to cheat and circumvent the marketplace that IZEA is providing.
Another useful feature of this type is the “feedback” feature - you can directly read feedback about your blog and see what the advertisers think about your writing!

Combination of Advertiser and Blogger Accounts
It’s something we’ve been asking about for a long time, and we finally have it! As you can imagine, this will really make it much easier to promote your own blog as well as earn money from it. I can’t give out any more details than what IZEA themselves have announced, but be sure and try this out whenever you get your hands on SocialSpark.

It’s Search Engine Friendly
I have refused to use PayPerPost at this site because I want Zero and Up to remain “pure” in the eyes of the search engines. With Social Spark, everything is search engine friendly. All ads are nofollow, so Google has no excuse to get mad at bloggers using the system now. Also, PageRank is not used as a segmentation for opportunities; segmentation will be based mainly upon the RealRank system.

One last question that many people ask is that if the earning potential is greater for bloggers with the SocialSpark system. After looking around, here’s my best guess: If your blog has a genuine traffic audience, then yes, your potential is greater. If your blog has been earning money mostly because of it’s PageRank, then you might end up earning less from this new network.

It may be a while before SocialSpark is fully up and running to the public, but trust me: it looks great. I’ll keep you updated here*, so be sure and subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss a thing.

*Until the Alpha period is over, I can’t officially reveal anything that IZEA themselves haven’t publicly stated. Sorry!