This week's column takes a look at word-of-mouth marketing company BzzAgent Inc., which sends various products to bloggers and other consumers in exchange for honest, full-disclosure reviews.

The company currently fields about 7,100 buzz agents in Washington and around 1,880 in Idaho.

One of those agents goes by the name of Shinie when she writes her Well, I Guess This Is Growing Up blog in North Idaho. We conducted the following e-mail Q&A last week. I'm posting it here as a column bonus:

How did you come to sign up with BzzAgent, what types of writeups have you done, and what are your thoughts on the service?
I found out about Bzz while browsing through a message board and I checked out the website. After reading the fine print and discovering there really were no costs associated, I signed up. After registering, I filled out profile information. Periodically they post surveys on my Bzz homepage for me to fill out. By completing the surveys, they can fit products to me to and my lifestyle.

I signed up at the beginning of June. So far I have received all kinds of products to try. Some examples are: Hillshire Farm Entree Salads, Coppertone Sunblock, OFF, Raid Yellow Jacket Traps and a subscription to TV Guide. Bzz sends me the regular, full size product to try. In exchange, I agree to tell people about the products. The whole idea of Bzz is word of mouth advertising.

Campaigns for each product last from a month to six weeks. During this time, if I tell someone about the product, I report back to Bzz about it. I also answer mid- and post-campaign surveys about the products. I receive points for each report and survey answered. I can redeem my points for a limited amount of rewards such as books, travel mugs, game sets and charitable donations.

In terms of the kind of reporting I do back to Bzz, I'll give you an example:

My latest campaign is Listerine White Strips. [She proceeded to give a mini-review of the product.]

That's it! I've officially Bzz'd to you about Listerine White Strips. Now I'll log into Bzz, copy and paste what I just wrote to you and submit it as my report. They ask how many people I Bzz'd and what kind of reaction the Bzz received. The more Bzzing and participation I have, the more campaigns and rewards I can get.

I've really enjoyed being a Bzz Agent. It's been really fun to try products I might not have otherwise purchased. At this time, you do not need a referral to sign up as an agent. However, they do keep track of any referrals that I give out.

What's the main reason you participate in BzzAgent?
The main reason I participate in Bzz is I like free stuff. I also like to try new stuff. As a stay-at-home mom, I feel it's my "job" to save the family money. Spreading Bzz requires a minimal amount of time and work. A lot of times it's products I would probably end up chatting about with my friends and family even if I had purchased them myself.

So it sounds like in addition to blogging you also do email and word-of-mouth messaging for some campaigns?
Most of my Bzzing is done face to face with people. For example, when I was participating in the Coppertone sunblock campaign, I would share my sunblock with other moms when we were at the park. That would give me the opportunity to Bzz and hand out coupons while others got to try the product.

What kind of feedback have you gotten from blog readers?
I don't get a lot of feedback from the blog. What I have gotten is in the comment sections. However, I track my page views with StatCounter and can see that I get a lot of hits when people search Google for products I have Bzz'd. The Hillshire Farm Entree Salads entry brings a lot of readers through from Google.

You do a great job of disclosure on your product reviews, but I did notice your hotels site review didn't note that was part of a campaign. Do you see the Frogpond [a BzzAgent program to promote online properties] site reviews as a little different in that regard?
To be honest, the hotels site is the only Frogpond I've done. Bzz just added that feature to the agent website. So far I haven't put a lot of time and energy into seeing how it works or using it. I do consider it a different feature because I am not receiving a product in exchange for telling people about it.

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I have to say, all this talk of "bzzing" reminds me of a certain notorious "Saturday Night Live" sketch from the 1970s.

And speaking of promoting Web sites, please sign up for the free Alternative Source podcast.