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Microsoft woos bloggers with free computers, Vista | |
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| Time: 12:20 EST/17:20 GMT | News Source: Macworld | Posted By: Byron Hinson | ||
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Microsoft's efforts to woo influential bloggers by sending them free computers loaded with the Vista operating system is generating controversy, with some online writers attacking would-be Vista reviewers for taking what were tantamount to bribes, while recipients defend their editorial independence, arguing that journalism-style rules prohibiting such gifts are outdated. Bloggers who acknowledged receiving the computers as part of the joint Microsoft and AMD marketing program include Mary Jo Foley, Om Malik, Michael Arrington, Ed Bott and others. | ||
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| #1 By 3 (62.253.128.14) at 1/3/2007 12:22:05 PM |
| Where's mine??? |
| #2 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 1/3/2007 12:45:00 PM |
| #1: Look for it last week, when this story was news. |
| #3 By 32132 (142.32.208.232) at 1/3/2007 12:46:32 PM |
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http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36682
"Hardware, sometimes shatteringly expensive, shiny and cool, sometimes a book, is routinely sent to reviewers. A company runs the numbers and determines whether the PR value they may get from the part is worth the expense of buying an item and sending it off. The bigger the site, and the higher the readership, the more exposure it will get them. This is why big and influential sites can write a company and ask for things and you can't. The fact that your entire extended family reads your blog religiously does not help your case much. When you get the hardware you use it to actively review, colour your opinions about a company, or leave on the shelf to use when you get other parts. They all tend to have one thing in common, there is no way I would have bought any of the parts I have if I had to spend my own money. There is also no way I would have written about them if I did not have one. I have three high end servers, two high end gaming boxes, a dozen more PCs, and enough parts that I may need a bigger house soon. If I get an R600 in the mail, I can plug it into a 4x4 and a Kentsfield in minutes and try it out. ATI will get press for the card, AMD and Intel will get press for their gaming stuff , and the best man wins, as do readers. If I did not have the parts here, there would be no review, and ATI would not get any press other than "it is coming out" with dry specs. If you send me a set of SCSI drives, plugging it in to an Athlon 64 3000+ box does little good. Plugging it into the Clovertown or Rev F server is a lot more relevant to the readership and the manufacturers. If these were not sent to me, there is no way I would rush out and buy a $10,000 server to test a $500 drive. I probably would not test the $500 drive if I had to buy it either. See a pattern?" |
| #4 By 13030 (198.22.121.110) at 1/3/2007 3:25:42 PM |
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I like Joel's take regarding this specific issue.
Bribing Bloggers http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/12/28.html |
| #5 By 32132 (142.32.208.232) at 1/3/2007 3:30:53 PM |
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#4 "I've been thinking long and hard about this, and the only conclusion I can come to is that this is ethically indistinguishable from bribery. "
I have to agree. Everytime a blogger or tech publication reviews a piece of hardware or software they did not pay retail for, they have been bribed. Since they are all corrupt, none can be trusted. On the other hand, Joel could just be making an exception for when Microsoft does it. In that case he is a dishonest moron. |
| #6 By 3 (62.253.128.14) at 1/3/2007 3:36:40 PM |
| It's pretty stupid, I get to keep lots of hardware and every piece of software we're ever sent for review. Does it ever stop me from giving bad reviews etc? Nope never otherwise I just don't see the point in ever wanting to review it. Give everything you get glowing reviews isn't exactly going to go un-noticed by people. |
| #7 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 1/3/2007 3:45:42 PM |
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#6: You can be the most ethical reviewer in the world, but the problem is the companies that stop doing ad business with you when they get a bad review. Whoring and forum-shopping aren't exactly new in review journalism. Consumer Reports is the only place that does it right. They buy their own products off the shelf anonymously. That can get pretty expensive though.
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| #8 By 25030 (72.78.119.202) at 1/3/2007 6:10:46 PM |
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I don't see the problem here. The folks who can afford to buy every peice of hardware/software they buy at retail prices is far more likely to be motivated by greed/bribery than the average blogger. If someone is a Microsoft shill, every one of us on this site would call them on it. If someone trashed every CPU that Intel put out, why would anyone with any clue bother with them?
On the other side, if a popular, well known reviewer or magazine was completely shunned by a manufacturer, and never got any products to review, we'd know about it, and the suspicions would fly. I think that companies distributing their products gratis or at reduced prices would only help the IT community at large, since we'd have a much more vast pool of reviews and articles to examine to make a more informed choice. And frankly, if I along with several other IT execs bought a product or service because every review I had read was a 5 star review, and the product turned out to be junk, you can bet you'd hear about it, not only here, but across a wide spectrum of publications, blogs, and the like. |
| #9 By 20505 (216.102.144.11) at 1/3/2007 6:24:58 PM |
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I'd like to comment on a major point forwarded by the blogger Joel Spolsky (sited above by ch) regarding the purported impartialness of reviewers reviewing hardware that they themselves purchase.
The implication is that if the item is not a giveaway that the reviewer is not beholden to the supplier to provide a good review. The problem with this argument is that few if any people are willing to admit that they have spent their own hard earned money on a piece of junk. To wit, when was the last time you purchased a shiny new item and then turned to a friend and said “i’ve been had, this thing is absolutely terrible”? Sure, it happens but I would contend that you are more likely to offer a poor review of something that you have not purchased but received free. I for one believe in the honesty in most reviewers on the web despite the fact that stuff gets comped mostly because I usually have thirty five other reviews to compare to it. |
| #10 By 23275 (68.17.42.38) at 1/3/2007 8:28:42 PM |
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#9, Oldog finds the only valid thread in the logic here.
Unless money is no object for a self-funding reviewer [yeah right, and these cats just can't wait to fire up a Blog...], then any purchasing would be based upon either a) needs, b) desires, or c) both. Money being no object could of course be part of a design, or business model - e.g., consumer reports where the costs are part of the business plan, or as with safety tests, where manufacturers have to provide test products if they wish to receive any rating at all. We of course, are not dealing with either of these two groups - where some perfect objectivity might be expected. That is irrelevant, because blogs, vlogs and text snippets like those we've provided here are not even close to what one might consider journalism and that is the main point of consideration here. Ethics as apply to journalists do not apply in the law west of the pecos space we each are either witness to, or participate in. The best of the blogs are as much like news as entertainment as they are anything else - where there is very little difference between the likes of Stewart on Comedy Central or from O'Reilly on Fox News - both are clearly entertainers and advocates - be they of different types and styles. YET - each carries great influence - just as many blogs do. Journalism does not seek this property. It just is, or should be in any case. It is therefore highly improbable that even the best of bloggers would actually buy anything they did not have some interest in and harbor some advocacy for. This is where the provision of such test systems as a form of honoraria does have a legitimate place. Such honoraria are not only legal, they are appropriate and expected. Their context and intent is clear. Where this all fails is when we assign some higher expectation to such practices - that is what is inappropriate. Now, someone kindly tell me where one might actually find a practicing journalist, or newsman? I'd like to experience what receiving the news used to be like again - and the last time that happened was before Dan Rather found opportunity in taking pot-shots at everyone as Watergate unfolded. |
| #11 By 37047 (216.191.227.68) at 1/4/2007 7:49:20 AM |
| As I see it, it doesn't really matter to me whether or not the reviewer bought the product with his own money, or got a demo unit from a manufacturer, or was given a production model. What matters to me is the quality of the evaluation, the lack of significant bias on the part of the reviewer (some bias is to be expected), and most importantly, the reputation of the reviewer / review site / magazine. I won't listen to a reviewer who has a reputation as a Microsoft shill, for example, even if his review is accurate, because he doesn't have a reputation as an independant and unbiased reviewer. So, when I read a review of a Microsoft product by Paul Thurott, for example, I give it less weight than a review by someone like Scott Finnie, who, in my opinion, is less biased and gives everyone a fair shake. |
| #12 By 2 (24.239.197.85) at 1/4/2007 8:08:43 AM |
| ActiveWin received a MCE. |
| #13 By 8556 (12.207.97.148) at 1/4/2007 9:02:25 AM |
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There is no one industry standard for what is ethical when reviewing a product. Some publications have thier own guidlines, such as return everything, that must be followed. Honesty on the part of the reviewer is what matters. A powerful mitigating factor in favor of reviewers keeping goods is that the majority of reviewers get paid little to nothing for their efforts. The perk is to keep it, or purchase it at a discount, unless the sender wants it back. If a reviewer lies and, for example writes that DOS 4.1 is the best ever, the world stops believing what this person writes and the reviewer quickly fades away. It takes time to delvelop a good rep. No smart reviewer is going to risk their rep for a free laptop, or any other item of value.
MS has always seeded the market with freebies. |
| #14 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 1/5/2007 9:08:28 AM |
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Did anybody complain about Toms Hardware getting a free laptop?
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/02/windows_vista_ultimate_hands_on/ you guys all realize that the majority of product reviews are the result of the company sending free stuff to the reviewer? Right? The only company that does not do this is Consumers Union, and many of their product reviews tend to suck because the reviewers don't have much knowledge of the product area. |
| #15 By 8556 (12.207.97.148) at 1/5/2007 11:38:31 AM |
| sodablue: Most reviewers, or their editors, request products to review or are asked by a manufacturer if they would like to review a particular product. The Microsoft laptops were sent unsolicited. That is why there is a debate about ethics. |
| #16 By 32132 (142.32.230.249) at 1/5/2007 12:56:52 PM |
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"The Microsoft laptops were sent unsolicited."
Nonsense! Joel Spolsky says otherwise: "Here's the offer I received from a Microsoft employee: I’m working on getting some hardware out to key community folks, and I’d like to offer you a review PC. I’d love to send you a loaded Ferrari 1000 courtesy of Windows Vista and AMD. Are you interested? This would be a review machine, so I’d love to hear your opinion on the machine and OS. Full disclosure - while I hope you will blog about your experience with the pc, you don’t have to. Also, you are welcome to send the machine back to us after you are done playing with it, or you can give it away on your site, or you can keep it. My recommendation is that you give it away on your site, but it’s your call. Just let me know your opinion on Windows Vista and what you plan to do with it when the time comes." Joel also admits he has used free stuff before: "I do not have clean hands. I accepted that stupid cell phone from Sprint fully intending to never write about it, and later decided it was so bad I should just write a negative review. For a couple of years, I accepted a donation of colocation space and facilities from Peer 1 Network, but only because they were the best colocation facility and backbone provider I could find, and only because Joel on Software is really a non-profit, advertising-free site and I was happy to accept the sponsorship. Google donated a Search Appliance to provide search for Joel on Software, also mostly as a community service on their part, which was very nice. They probably intended to get some free publicity out of it. They did." Be honest. The usual double standard applies here: "If its Microsoft it is evil. Anyone else can send out free stuff and we won't make a fuss." |
| #17 By 8556 (12.207.97.148) at 1/5/2007 1:08:16 PM |
| NotParker: Thanks for clarifying this. Much of what I have read indicated that the machines were not offered in advance. I did not check the facts. My bad. By the way, no one said Microsoft was evil for sending out laptops...just those of us that didn't get one. |
| #18 By 37047 (216.191.227.68) at 1/5/2007 2:27:26 PM |
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Well, the offer itself was unsolicited. The only way it wouldn't be is if you called Microsoft (or whomever) and specifically asked for a review system in order to do a review.
Personally, I don't have a problem with Microsoft or any one else doing this. This has been happening for years. I'd personally be suspicious of the review, only because I suspect that when MS pre-loaded the system, they'd do some interesting, and undocumented, tweaking to get the most out of the hardware, in a way that the average user didn't have the resources to discover on their own. Now, if the reviewer indicated that after receiving the system, they wiped the hard drive and OS, and reinstalled it, so that the review could be based on a fresh install, along with any problems with the install itself, then I'd be more inclined to trust it. Once again, it comes down to the quality of the reviewer, not the unsolicited offer itself, that makes or breaks the quality of the review. And each reader must make that assessment for themselves. |
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