Tech Review Sites and Payola

cheesecake23 writes "How often have you read a hardware review and thought: 'No way was that an honest opinion, the reviewer was bought'—? The Daily Tech has gone undercover to find out whether or not payola is accepted among the 35 largest online English-language hardware review sites. Questions asked and answered — Q: How many sites would take money (or sell ads) in exchange for a product review? A: 20 percent. Q: How many sites would additionally consider selling an Editor's Choice award? A: None. Q: Were any regions of the world more corrupt than others? A: No, it was 20-25% almost everywhere. Q: Does it depend on the size or age of the site? A: RTFA. Although no bad actors were explicitly unmasked, the article contains enough information to make a whitelist of quite a few good guys."

I wonder...

[WFFS]

How much to get an article on Slashdot? =p

They only take it from known conspirators

[mrcaseyj]

Maybe they only take money from people they know are from major companies, because if they took money from anyone who asked, they would be quickly exposed.

A survey of editors??

[canada_dry]

Isn't that akin to asking death row inmates if they're guilty?

Give the names, you chickensh!t

[mi]

Although no bad actors were explicitly unmasked

And why not, exactly? Oh, because they might sue? Come dear, this site talks about government oppression (and the need to oppose it) constantly. Resisting the evil **AAs is considered civil disobedience [slashdot.org] (automatically noble, of course). But you can't list the few sites, who — verifiably, one assumes — have agreed to accept something in exchange for better reviews?

Sorry. No Pulitzer prize for this piece of investigative journalism...

Do you lie cheat or steal?

[edwardpickman]

"Heavens no, next question?"

Ask any Congressman and they'll be happy to tell you they don't take gifts from Lobbyist. Then you start asking have you ever accepted a trip, expensive bottle of wine or dinner, etc and the story changes. There are other ways of pressuring and where as I think there are legit sites like Tom's I think the percentages are much worse than presented. At the very least many sites are biased whether the bias comes from personal conviction or encouragement is the question.

I Learned To Ignore Most Reviews And Go To Forums

[chromozone]

I found many reviews to be very unreliable for the most part and stopped reading them. Monitor reviews are especially bad imo. Rarely will a reviewer even mention what type of panel it is (TN, S-IPS, S-PVA etc)and that's an irregularity in my view because cheap panels like the TN's get the same or better ratings as the usually superior S-IPS panels (which look obvioulsy different to anyone with 30 seconds instruction). Dell and Samsung seem to always get positive reviews. Then some riot ensues in the forums likes when Dell had banding issues. In the past year Dell has ben swapping inferior panels into displays after they already got reviews with superior panels. The forums are full of "Dell Lottery" posts and thread threads complining about buying one monitor and essentially getting another. After months of this, I think I have seen it mentioned once in an article in the may sites I see visit. Dell ads are flashing on the sides of most of these sites. Reviews seem to be becoming an extension of manufacturers marketing just like TV and print news always seem to be inserting the latest entertainment product made by the ABC, FOX etc. I find the best way to see it good reviews are merited is to follow how the forums react.

Re:"Immorality" of radio payola?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some crazy-ass people out there who don't believe that not everything of value can be determined by money, or corporations with money. There was also a time when corporations, at least in theory, were understood to have the purpose of serving the greater good as opposed to people serving the corporation.

It almost sounds like a win-win for the consumer.

Corporate America determining the selections of music that is played on limited public airwaves is a good thing??

the choice of the word "immoral" -- is kind of lost on me.

That may be in part because the connotation of moral has changed as have
the morals (and I don't mean religious) from earlier times.

Misuse of public resources?

[Prien715]

So there was this guy on trial, he says to the jury "Looks like I have money, you have power, let's talk. We can work something out".

What's wrong with the above? Money is trading hands between private individuals for mutual exchange, but something the public owns (i.e. the judicial system) is getting used not for the greater good of society, but for individuals. It's the same thing with radio. There's a limited amount of bandwidth the public gives away with knowledge that the owner will use it impartially for playing music. If payola is legal, radio stations may as well be owned by the record companies themselves. If Virgin records had a radio station, they'd use it to shamelessly promote their own artists. This isn't so hypothetical since Virgin does in fact own a satellite radio station, but that's OK, since in so doing, they are not using up the limited public bandwidth.

This is a little abstract now that most radio stations are owned by Clear Channel and have no claim to independence, but this was originally meant to allow some separation and moderation between the consumer and the record companies, while allowing new artists and record companies to have low barriers to entry. There's still college radio stations, pacifica radio, and NPR stations, but aside from that, unfortunately non-bias in exchange for public goods does seem to have gone with the times.

Aussie Aussie Aussie

[bobby1234]

All English speaking countries except Australia....8->

Who was expecting honesty from the land of convicts down under...

or maybe we are better at smelling a setup...

Re:They only take it from known conspirators

[mpapet]

Not really. It's quite simple actually.

The publication can't give a bad review. No more free review equipment.

If consumers _really_ wanted unbiased reviews, then publications would do it the right way. Buy the product off the retailer's shelf and test. But that's expensive and no consumer is willing to pay for it. This has led to opportunities that equipment manufacturers exploit.

Yes, the problem exists. IME the article in question is touching an ice cube on the tip of an iceberg, but no one cares enough to pay for the other, more objective, review. Want an honest review? Then pay for it. That's not going to happen though.

Re:"Immorality" of radio payola?

[laffer1]

Yes, but if radio stations take bribes and play one song more often then other songs get less (or no) playtime. This does hurt the consumer because there might be a new song from a good artist that I might be interested in. For instance, say U2 releases a new album and single. Instead of U2, some new boy band group with no talent gets played constantly. Now I have to listen to crap or bring an iPod with me in the car. I shouldn't have to subscribe to a service or get an HD radio to listen to something besides boy bands and other crap 13 year olds like. They say adults stop buying music at age 28. The reason is that we don't like POP crap anymore.

Now U2 is big enough that I can still see ads and buy it on iTunes. However, what about new artists that I don't know exist yet? I listen to the radio to find new music just as much as I listen for songs I like.

Very reliable study

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice how they only tested English-language sites, only 35 in total, and yet they have "results" for all of Europe and Asia, which have a lot more than 35 countries and where 95% of them do not have English as an official language. Also, they don't name any names, so the entire article might as well have been made up... quality "journalism" from the leading press-release propagation website...

The beef

[adolf]

The beef is that he is his own personal shill. Nearly every story he submits is a link to his own blog.

Whether they're interesting stories or not, and whether his stories are worse than having no Roland at all, it's the sort of blatant self-promotion that people on Slashdot are finely attuned toward hating. It is an affront to the sort of chaotic diversity that we've grown accustomed to having here, and folks don't like it.

Payola is a widespread problem

[mollog]

I finally wised up the the coincidence of endorsements of parts for performance cars, and the size of the ads in the magazines. Once I figured that out, I started seeing this sort of thing everywhere. In many places it's obvious, in other places it is more subtle. Recently I've noticed that this viral marketing is effecting web searches.

I'm thankful for this little bit of 'research', but the job that was done was cursory and will simply make these charlatans be a little more sneaky about how business is conducted; where there's money to be made, product placement can be bought.

This is one of the arguments for open-sourcing development of software and hardware; 'products' compete on merit, not marketing.

Re:Is this a surprise?

[Belacgod]

When I look to buy, I read the bad reviews. If they sound kooky, I buy; if they have valid complaints I don't. Under no circumstances do I put any weight on good reviews.

Re:"Immorality" of radio payola?

[poopdeville]

The airwaves are a public good. Radio stations are given license to broadcast provided they benefit the public and follow certain rules.

Re:"Immorality" of radio payola?

[epine]

This is completely true. In my town one of the local DJs went AWOL from the payola program and played some songs from a new release he personally really liked and then the local demand for that artist went through the roof, nearly costing that DJ his job. It's still the only town I know of where people call in to request that artist.

There are limits to how bad/good something can be before manipulation is no longer an important factor, though an obscure artist can be popular among a niche group on the basis of exception material without making much money.

It's extremely easy to do the math on how much promotion matters? How much money, time, and effort is invested in it? Lots. Especially concerning the teenage and young adult demographic, the group most determined to assert their independence.

Then you can ask yourself "how much is my hypothetical unbiased choice really worth to me?" With some determination, it is possible to apply your own criteria to your purchases, but it is an enormous amount of work, often for little gain. When I've done this with my technical purchases, it never works to my advantage. Even if you get your carefully researched order accepted, it comes back the next day "actually, we can't get part X for another three weeks, how about spiffy mainstream part Y?" and you debate that, and then it comes back "part U has gone out of production, but we can part V with almost exactly the same part number that replaces it". Anyone remember the DLINK 530TX and the DLINK 530TX+? The "plus" part swaps out the Via Rhine controller for a RealTek controller. Or you get the Dell effect where what appeared to be an excellent panel turns out to have different guts than when it was reviewed. Or you go to your favorite vendor's web site and find 200 different video cards listed, all sort of the same, yet different. Small differences, such as a card promising 350MHz RAMDACs on each head, but then in the fine print limiting the second head to 60Hz refresh as resolutions greater than a megapixel. Plus the particular glitch you need to avoid is a constantly moving target. Early on in the PCI era, there was a series of disk controllers with an internal one byte overwrite problem that were guaranteed to corrupt your disk with any kind of software write-behind disk cache enabled. Of all the machines for sale, only a small fraction listed enough specs. to determine whether this chip was present or not. Reading PC Magazine cover to cover with a magnifying glass to the fine print in every full page system ad gives you a whole new perspective on not having a life.

This isn't limited to technology, either. Eliminating unwanted food inputs from your diet is far more work than it needs to be. I once naively bought a bag of Cargo Cult cinnamon without reading the list of ingredients. I get it home and discover it contains a hydrogenated oil, probably as a flow agent. Not only that, it was coarse and barky and lacking in essential oils. As fast as you figure who not to trust, the old villians are recycled again, like the furniture store that has gone out of business every two years on the same premise for as long as you can recall.

You don't discover the true power of the system until you attempt to swim against the grain. Even if there are reviews out there entirely free from payola influence, you have to work to figure out which ones those are. The system is not designed to stop you from swimming in the currents of self-determination, just to wear you out.

It would be very easy from a technical perspective in the grocery retail sector to have a GUID embedded on each item of merchandise that links to a database with ingredients and disclaimers (may contains traces of peanut) and to provide shoppers with a little handheld device they can point at the GUID, and configure with a profile of desired or undesired attributes (no bad oils, no excessive sodium, etc.) and a big red light and a nasty buzzer and a speak generation system that barks "Crap! Crap! Crap!" as you strol

Re:Slashdot Payola

[metalcup]

What's so wrong about having sections for Intel and AMD? They are clearly MARKED (hell, they have their own sub-domains!).

This is a tech site - so what is so wrong if the top tech companies want to talk direct to the segment of the customer base that probably understands their products best?

We get to tell them what we like/feel/want/desire/whatever, they get to explain their stuff to us, and slashdot gets to make some cash to keep the whole thing going..

Everyone wins - so, where is the scam in that?

Google is your friend

[rlp]

First read the glowing reviews of the product on several tech sites. Then type the name of the product into Google followed by the word "sucks". Read those "reviews". The truth is normally somewhere in between.