i'm not a fan of their whole editorial approach and methodology and have zero use for their information, but i respect that they are true to their beliefs and have little compromise.
Thank- you Mike and Alan
i'm not a fan of their whole editorial approach and methodology and have zero use for their information, but i respect that they are true to their beliefs and have little compromise.
Google matters most.
However, publicly selling reviews will reduce the value of the review from the manufacturer's standpoint.
Not at all! If the content (and writers and servers and domain and administration...) is paid by the manufacturer, then why plaster the pages with advertising?
Consumer Reports charges full retail for 100% of their subscriptions. and it's not cheap. they have zero advertising. maybe they get a few contributions....but not significant amounts. so maybe a couple hundred million annual budget. it's a non-profit so no stockholders and related admin costs.
i'm not a fan of their whole editorial approach and methodology and have zero use for their information, but i respect that they are true to their beliefs and have little compromise.
I'm not barking or suggesting anything. Any idiot can tell they have a much larger consumer base. I asked a simple question of who/what subsidizes Consumer Reports. Guess you don't know.
Although I prefer the company on this forum, I think Computer Audiophile has an excellent formula. There's a combo of user experiences on the forum and formal reviews followed with peanut gallery commentary. Ads are selectively sold there as well. The user comments are good because they tend to keep Chris Connacker honest. He gets accused of being a sellout reviewer all the time. I think it's a good modern model. If a user has a constructive criticism concerning a review, it is easy to leave commentary.
I think 6moons is trying to be transparent as well. However, publicly selling reviews will reduce the value of the review from the manufacturer's standpoint. There's nothing to brag about when everyone knows the reviews are for sale.
Transparency is better demonstrated using the dialectic model. Forums are uniquely suited to deliver on a free/open dialectic approach as long as folks can get along.
Btw, Google greatly prefers content followed with real user commentary over static, old-fashioned articles. Like it or not, Google matters most.
Michael.
like so many other forums that just trash a persons commentary by asking the provider to 'prove it' from the peanut gallery crowd. Like in Google, you have to read between the lines of so much BS. At least in a forum you can get one on one with PMs and even a phone call.peanut gallery commentary
It still comes back down to the same thing doesn't it? i.e. that the manufacturers are paying them. Whether it is paid by way of advertising or otherwise there is still a payment. And from the manufacturer's POV I think they prefer advertising because that is additional exposure for them.
We all know that this industry has a lot of small-time operations that probably would not get very far without some nice comments in print. 6moons has been one of the goto places on the web where it was possible to get a review even if you were a garage-based operation on a shoestring budget.
What I am wanting to know is how this will play out. If y'all think that manufacturers are sitting on a wad of cash you are mistaken. The field is quite competitive and you are doing well if you can make a living at it. Many manufacturers I know don't (IOW they make a living at something else). So if the industry takes on this model- manufacturers paying for reviews, no ads, how is that going to work out?
IMO it will have a chilling effect on the industry. Content is what all magazines sell, content is what manufacturers offer in the way of review samples and the shows we support and the sometimes outlandish philosophies we purport. Small time players may well be priced out in the cold. Could that happen??
It is true that in Japan, the manufacturer pays for the review- usually a nominal fee and have dinner with the reviewer, at least that is how it was in the old days. In a way, it was nice to know upfront what was up. But this does seem to be a practice that has not spread very far in the 20 years since I first heard about it. I suspect there is a reason.
In my personal opinion, it sounds to me, Srajan, that you may simply have not been charging enough for the advertising on your site. Although we have not had a review on your site nor have we advertised, one thing that has always been a standout has been the lavish layouts on each page. That has been done well enough that its literally a trademark. I would think this is worth something to potential advertisers. Am I wrong? Or did it not occur to you to raise your rates?
Alan Sircom: "What concerns me here is that a larger manufacturer could potentially use its deeper pockets to buy up a lot of review slots, flooding the site, and pushing less wealthy rivals under the radar. It could also drive away the poor start-up, who actually needs to rely on that ad hoc patronage in the early days. At its worst, this could steer readers away not just from rival brands, but in directions not dictated by the market."
Just because a manufacturer contacts us for a review doesn't imply (or obligate us) to accept the request. Nobody can flood a site unless the owner let's them. Our appeal all along has been a varied product mix mostly outside the mainstream just because the mainstream has been covered so well already by the mainstream publications. Why would I give up our winning recipe or identity? I might just as well rename the magazine -
Except for me, nobody on my staff reviews full-time. For them the usual qualifiers of having to be interested in an assignment apply as they always have. If you don't get paid, you *only* go after product you have a personal interest in. The motivation to do otherwise just isn't there. With the bonus of a small writer's fee, some writers could feel compelled now to stretch their interests and also work outside their comfort zone. That could only be a good thing. Obviously Editorial remains responsible that they do so in a competent fashion. And after all these years, I too am still an enthusiast at heart. I can only personally handle so many assignments in any given month. Should my inbox flood with review solicitations, I will now as I always have to sort through those and select based on personal interest, whether I think our readers would be interested, whether I have the proper experience and ancillaries necessary for the assignment and so forth. Anything that I can't or don't want to handle; and which my team can't handle - won't get a review. It's always been that way and our policy change has no effect on it.
Alan Sircom: It's a non-refundable fee paid before an actual assignment begins. It commits us and reserves a scheduled slot with the assigned writer. We won't start any work beforehand. It's no different than a Dutch manufacturer expecting prepayment before shipping product to his Hong Kong importer. In hifi sales, trusted dealers and distributors eventually get terms - ship now, pay later. In the ad-based model which is presumed to exist entirely disconnected from reviews, it's ship now (publish a review) and perhaps pay later (thank us with an ad or not, it's entirely up to you). It's a most peculiar business model which pretends that ads and reviews are completely separate entities. How could they be if a magazine's survival hinges on the ads to produce content? The current model simply isn't *specific* about how those two things interact and what a manufacturer is expected to do - openly, cleanly, practically, fully disclosed and apparent also to the readers whom we serve.
Until now,we've delivered on the 'ship now' aspect and taken an open risk (no commitments made, no assurances given) that we'd eventually get paid. As I've said like a broken record, failure to pay was about 70%. It's a peculiar reverse entitlement sense. "You guys (6moons, whoever) seem to be successful. I'm a manufacturer who needs help launching my business or sustaining my business or promoting a new model. You owe me that help. That's what you're there for so get going. And don't you dare mention advertising because that's quid pro quo and I'm not having it."
Or, there's the dangle. "We'll support you if you take care of us. But take care of us first and then we'll decide how much you deserve." And that's supposed to be the Chinese wall and prevent undue influence?
Really, that system is broken in so very many places...
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