Who hires these PR people?

[Jason Dunn]

Allow me the luxury of rolling up my sleeves for a little rant here - perhaps you can relate? As I posted earlier, ArcSoft has released a <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1854">Pocket PC photo viewing application</a>. In posting on that application, I gave them likely the biggest amount of audience-specific free exposure they've had to date. An average Tuesday for this site is 17,000 visits. They have no demo to download, so I thought that getting a review copy would be a good way to check it out and let you know if it's any good.<br /><br />So I emailed the public relations contact listed on the ArcSoft web site. It went to a woman named Heather, a group manager with Weber Shandwick. Having heard of that PR firm before I though "Ok, good, I'm dealing with a professional here that will know her market." What kind of response did I get?<br /><br />Heather: "Thanks for your interest, unfortunately, we have to reserve our review copies for members of the press."<br /><br />So let me get this straight - Heather doesn't consider this site to be press? It frustrates me when I encounter a marketing or public relations person who has no clue about the market she's supposed to be an expert in. How can she do effective marketing when she doesn't know about this site? It's not ego talking here folks - this site, Brighthand, Pocket PC Passion, pocketnow.com, and others make up a powerful communications mechanism for disseminating information to the community. To ignore that is to ignore a huge tool for cheap marketing. Refusing me a $30 piece of software, considering the free coverage it would get on this site, is simply ignorant.<br /><br />Unfortunately, Heather's attitude isn't a rare one. My educational background is in public relations, and I've encountered many people like her in the industry. They only focus on the mainstream media sites like CNET, pandering to reporters who use the product for an hour and issue a summary judgment on what it can do. More often than not, their lack of detail does a disservice to their readers, but the PR agency can crow "Look! We got your product on CNET!".<br /><br />Someday these companies will <a href="http://www.cluetrain.com/">get on the Cluetrain</a> and realize that community web sites are one of the most powerful marketing tools they have.

[mookie123]

Jason's ego just took a blow. heh heh.

But seriously. I think they do need to get a clue.

PS. hey how about a special section on Pocket PC thought on "reviewed product. (ie. you make the review/or some submission, ....and than the rest of people rant/whine/complain/make smart ass comment about the review) :lol:

[spg]

Unfortunately this seems to be the case all to often. It frustrates me to the point of going insane! Ok, maybe not that far... But I do think PR firms need to "Get A Clue" about what to consider "press". There are some that are quite good at it (TalonPR is one) they focus on what users will value most as opposed to numbers of readers. This is the best attitude to have IMHO.

[Sven Johannsen]

Someday these companies will ..... realize that community web sites are one of the most powerful marketing tools they have.

Or marketing killers they have. It amazes me the amount of negative press that sails across Thoughts, PpcP, even microsoft.public.pocketpc, that goes totally unchallenged by anyone connected with the product. You'ld think that there would be someone in these companies, interested enough in the products they produce, to frequent these sites, and if not personally to counter criticism, to at least make it known to their marketing types, who should.

[Scott R]

Or marketing killers they have. It amazes me the amount of negative press that sails across Thoughts, PpcP, even microsoft.public.pocketpc, that goes totally unchallenged by anyone connected with the product. You'ld think that there would be someone in these companies, interested enough in the products they produce, to frequent these sites, and if not personally to counter criticism, to at least make it known to their marketing types, who should.
I think that's the interesting thing about blog sites and the new-era journalist news/reviews sites such as this one. They can be somewhat schizophrenic in nature. One day they sing praises, the next harsh criticisms.

The advantage of these sites is that they can move extremely quickly, even when they haven't been given advanced information. CNET produces a polished news story thanks to inside/advanced information, but a site like this can pick up that news story within an hour and add a lot more useful insight. The downside is that these sites don't have the same level of journalistic standards that other sites will. That's the price to be paid for breaking news quickly. You often don't have time to run it past a group of other professionals (assuming you have other professionals on your staff) to make sure it's wise to run the story. Even editorials have to be given the OK in the mainstream media.

As I stated in the thread about the Toshiba XScale issues, the tide can turn very quickly. One day this is an PPC enthusiast site, the next day a large majority are strongly voicing (to put it nicely) displeasure in MS (right or wrong). The new media (which involves forums) is great for companies to sift through and learn from, but getting too close can be playing with fire and I think that many of them are either afraid or just don't know what to do with it.

I sympathize with your frustration, Jason. But I have to wonder if the message would have been more effective if you had just stated the facts (e.g. - "I won't be able to review this because they indicated that they only give them out to the press and, apparently, don't consider sites like mine part of that group.") and then let your members take it from there.

Over time, the whole landscape will definitely change. I think that the meaningful "press" will be somewhere in-between the press as we know it now and sites such as this one.

Scott

[Jade Dragon]

I can't name the company, but could I tell my story here as well?

I'm the official game reviewer on PDABuyersguide.com and naturally I get games for reviews. One Marketing/PR person with a game developer told me that in order for me to get their game (costs less than $20) I must submit my review to get proval by the game developer before I publish it on our site. Now, clearly they have not even check out our site to see who we are and how we do things. It's pretty clear that we are an independent site. I did get the game, but I never played it and of course never written the review. I just have too many other games to look at and write about.

Another one needs to punch in the Cluetrain ticket.

Jade

[acollet]

Any company that wont provide a 29.00 review copy to PocketPCThoughts is not gonna get my 29.00. Of ALL the sites out there (CNET included) PocketPCThouthts and the Gadgeteer are the MOST trusted sites around for reviws.

[Brad Adrian]

...you make the review/or some submission, ....and than the rest of people rant/whine/complain/make smart ass comment about the review

I thought that's how we already treat Jason's posts!

[Macguy59]

I think Jason hit the bullseye. The PR firms don't want an informed review of their product. They want a quick non-informed softsoap review. Something that will translate well among the various rags.

[Dave Conger]

Here is what I find really great. Though the software costs $30 to the general public, it actually costs the company nothing to send it to Jason. It isn't like the loose money on packaging because they are emailing the software. And for the one extra attachment they would have to send, another 17,000 visitors would know even more about their software and be more likely to buy it. It isn't like they are sending out a $500 new Pocket PC to Jason that they aren't going to get back. I have the same problem with this as when Sharp sent the Wall Street Journal a Zaurus because the reviewer couldn't even figure out how to get it to sync and so he basically ended his hands-on review there.
I understand companies not wanting to send free stuff to smaller sites that would only give the review a quarter of the hits PPC Thoughts would get...but this is Thoughts, probably the largest, most hit Pocket PC site on the web.

[fmcpherson]

My guess is the right email to the right person within the software vendor will get the PR firm chewed out.

[Ed Hansberry]

I think that's the interesting thing about blog sites and the new-era journalist news/reviews sites such as this one. They can be somewhat schizophrenic in nature. One day they sing praises, the next harsh criticisms.
Some people just call that speaking their mind. Good news one day, praise it. Bad news, poor product or something dumb happens, rant on it. That isn't schizophrenic.
But I have to wonder if the message would have been more effective if you had just stated the facts (e.g. - "I won't be able to review this because they indicated that they only give them out to the press and, apparently, don't consider sites like mine part of that group.") and then let your members take it from there.
Kinda defeats the purpose of having a soap box doesn't it?

[mememe]

My guess is the right email to the right person within the software vendor will get the PR firm chewed out.

Not trying to start any flames, but... Jason does use this site (it is his creation afterall) to stroke his ego and get shtuff.. Been on the other end.

[Paragon]

Kinda defeats the purpose of having a soap box doesn't it?
:D That's the best one I've heard in a while Ed. I like that. Some days I wish I had my own soapbox.

Dave

[debug101]

FWIW..

I got upset enough to actually type out an email to the PR in question
stating that if Jason isn't qualified enough to review their software than
maybe it's not the right software for me.


That outta get some attention...


Now to sit back and hold my breath...


doug-

[Dave Conger]

I got upset enough to actually type out an email to the PR in question stating that if Jason isn't qualified enough to review their software than maybe it's not the right software for me.

I thought of this too, but I fear that it could go on deaf ears because I think Heather doesn't actually work for ArcSoft and probably doesn't want to report critisms of her work.

[hollis_f]

The PR firms don't want an informed review of their product.
The PR firms don't want a review at all - period.

They want some clueless hack who will (slightly) rephrase their press release, knowing that some clueless editor will accept it. They'll both get paid, no matter what. The only losers are the consumers.

That's why I won't buy anything based on reviews, unless they're backed up by users.

[DrtyBlvd]

More to the point, where's Heather's reply on this? Someone go wake her up would ya?

[DrtyBlvd]

Forgot to mention - the Cluetrain Manifesto. Wow.

[peeta]

I may be a good source of insight here (although I agree that this is misguided PR). I used to work for Shandwick on the Sharp Electronics account during the launch of WinCE (Mobilon, etc.) and they used to only give the PR firm a certain amount of demo packages that were expected to got to "top tier" press. We used to get three requests from kids with no credentials from fanzine-type sites for every member of the press that asked for a demo unit. I used to try to push the client to get more involved in the whole Web envangelism thing but they just weren't informed.

So...although this is a case of the PR woman not being informed, there's also a good chance that the software company is only allowing her to send demo packages to their "core" media list. Luckily for these companies, it seems like more and more are following Microsoft's lead and concentrating on grassroots marketing...which keeps people who read sites like there religiously, like me, well informed and loyal to their brand.

[Timothy Rapson]

I read 10 times as much about PDAs here as I do in those "real press" sources the lady sent the review copies to. I expect the same is true of lots of PDA users. We are not buying comic books.

PDA users are Web users. DUH!

Perhaps when this PR person sees how few responses she gets from the "real press" and later finds how much she gets from the Net Press, she will learn.....the hard way.

[bones]

FYI.

I work for a PPC software firm. On a day where our applications are "front page news" on PPC thoughts, our traffic has been known to jump above 10,000 Unique Visitors.

PPC thoughts, and other online publications like them, should be an important part of any PPC related organization's marketing/PR strategy.

Whether or not sites like ppc thoughts are considered "press" is a decision for each organisation - but if 10,000 + new visitors view your product or service (often at no extra cost), What better press is there?

Keep up the great work.

[Brad Adrian]

... Jason does use this site (it is his creation afterall) to stroke his ego and get shtuff...

Oh, PULEEEZE! Anybody who knows Jason at all knows that the last thing on his mind in these situations is to simply collect more "shtuff." You can imagine how much "shtuff" he already has filling his shelves and hard drives.

Mememe, if you read his piece again, you'll see that the only reason he even requested the software was because there was no free demo available to his readers and he wanted to post a review for their benefit.

[DrtyBlvd]

Brad - I'm disappointed that you even dignified the post!

[Paragon]

... Jason does use this site (it is his creation afterall) to stroke his ego and get shtuff...

Oh, PULEEEZE! Anybody who knows Jason at all knows that the last thing on his mind in these situations is to simply collect more "shtuff." You can imagine how much "shtuff" he already has filling his shelves and hard drives.

Mememe, if you read his piece again, you'll see that the only reason he even requested the software was because there was no free demo available to his readers and he wanted to post a review for their benefit.

Ya...so why is he giving, and selling so much stuff....car loads apparently :D :D

Dave

[Brad Adrian]

Brad - I'm disappointed that you even dignified the post!

I know, I probably shouldn't have. But sometimes even I get tired of such goofy posts, and the Mr. Obvious side of me takes over.

[Scott R]

Some people just call that speaking their mind. Good news one day, praise it. Bad news, poor product or something dumb happens, rant on it. That isn't schizophrenic.
I wasn't accusing individuals of being schizophrenic. I was merely stating that the medium itself (blog sites or sites incorporating a public forum) is schizophrenic. As was stated by someone else, companies often don't really want a hard-hitting review, they'd rather just have their tailored press release republished. A mainstream tech magazine/site is simply more conservative in nature.

Scott

[DrtyBlvd]

Brad

:lol:

I refer to it as being 'Mr. M.O.T.O', or 'M.O.T.F.O' depending on the circumstance. Always fancied a web page called it as well... :wink:

[Paragon]

I can understand why some corps. wouldn't want to have their product reviewed on a site such as this..... I don't agree with them, but I can ub-nderstand it. As Ed Hansberry said something dumb can happen, and all of a sudden you have 17,000 peole reading how bad your product is, possibly because one or two people let loose.

Look at the interview Jason did with Ed S... I would say something dumb happened there. Ed S. maybe put himself into a position to have that happen, but things sometime just take on a life of their own. That same interview in a mainstream magazine would not have had such a sour note without all our rebuts.

On an open forum anything can, and does happen. I think we will find the situation turn around when we can find a way to over come that fear. Imagine being that publicist, giving Jason a copy of the software and we, not Jason, we rip it apart. I don't think I would want to here what the developer would have to say.

Again, I don't agree with that line of thought, but I think for many it is the simple truth. I think the exposure out weighs the possilbe bad press.

Dave

[Jason Dunn]

...and they used to only give the PR firm a certain amount of demo packages that were expected to got to "top tier" press. We used to get three requests from kids with no credentials from fanzine-type sites for every member of the press that asked for a demo unit. I used to try to push the client to get more involved in the whole Web envangelism thing but they just weren't informed.

Thanks, that DOES make sense. She said something similar in a later email, but from my training and background, it ultimately falls back on the PR firm. The firm is representing the company, trying to build marketshare/mindshare for their product. If they can't convince the company with the product to give out a copy of software that ultimately costs the company perhaps $5 in total, then they're not a very effective PR firm. Now it may be that ArcSoft is totally clueless as well, and has refused the requests. Ultimately, ArcSoft is the loser here - it's not like the PR firm gets paid any less if I don't review the software.

[Jason Dunn]

I wasn't accusing individuals of being schizophrenic. I was merely stating that the medium itself (blog sites or sites incorporating a public forum) is schizophrenic. As was stated by someone else, companies often don't really want a hard-hitting review, they'd rather just have their tailored press release republished. A mainstream tech magazine/site is simply more conservative in nature.

I know what you mean - most companies are ultimately cowards when it comes to an honest review. Thankfully, not all companies are so gunshy. The only magazine I subscribe to is Maximum PC, and the only reason I read it is because they're not afraid to give a product a horrible review. Their reviews are totally honest and blunt - and I respect that. I know I'm not the only one. So why can't these companies "get" that if they have a great product, they'll probably get a great review, and ditto for having a crappy product. Feedback is useful, whether it's negative or positive.

[Jason Dunn]

Ya...so why is he giving, and selling so much stuff....car loads apparently :D :D

Cuz I got stuff to sell! :D Truth be told, 95% of that stuff is hardware/software that I've purchased myself. pcAnywhere 10.0? Used it for a month. &lt;sigh> I was also buying copies of Office XP/Windows XP for my church, a few at a time, then we realized that the non-profit multi-user license was FAR cheaper than any other option, so I ended up with quite a few copies. :roll:

[Jason Dunn]

Whether or not sites like ppc thoughts are considered "press" is a decision for each organisation

Very true. In fact, I'd prefer not to be known as "press", but rather "enthusiast" or in the "opinion influencer" category.

[DrtyBlvd]

Good point well made by Mr Dave there.

Lets say the software is rubbish and get them to send one over to disprove our comments shall we?

[Paragon]

Good point well made by Mr Dave there.

Lets say the software is rubbish and get them to send one over to disprove our comments shall we?

You're leading to a point I should have emphasized. I don't think it is the case this time, but maybe sometimes publicists know better then to put a copy in "our" hands... we 'will find out the truth. In that case ....smart publicist, yes!

Dave

[DrtyBlvd]

:lol: Granted, somewhat tongue in cheek - but I suppose it does mean that only someone who is confident in their product, or in their ability to refine it following criticism, will provide it to people (places) such as Jason (this)

Their refusal to do so does not necessarily imply anything at all; corporate decisions etc etc etc. Innocent 'till guilty maybe?

There is an argument that Jase should be buying the stuff that isn't provided free, in order to present reviews - 17k hits actually strenghtens this argument, rather than weakens it. :?

[Jason Dunn]

There is an argument that Jase should be buying the stuff that isn't provided free, in order to present reviews - 17k hits actually strenghtens this argument, rather than weakens it. :?

There's also an argument that people who want quality content should be willing to pay for it (like a magazine or book), but most don't. :wink: Simply put, there's no way I can afford to buy copies of everything I review. If it's not given to me, I won't review it.

But even this isn't perfect - to give you an example, Anycom wanted me to review their Bluetooth CF card, so they offered to sell it to me for a "good deal". I declined, not really being all that interested in the product anyway. They were really eager and finally said "Ok, we'll give it to you". They sent me the card, and guess what? They put a retail value of $180 US on the card (odd since they sell it for $149), which ended up costing me about $75 CND in brokerage, GST, and customs fees. So even when I get "free" stuff, it costs me money just to receive it. Anycom offered to reimburse me for the money it cost me to get the card...until they read my rather poor review and now their President no longer communicates with me.

It's an ugly business people. :?

[Scott R]

When someone starts a site such as this one, they usually have to depend on buying the stuff or asking others to submit reviews. When your site gets as popular as this one, you can usually get companies to give/lend you stuff to review. Even then, there may be some companies that won't and you have to decide whether you want it (or just want to review it) bad enough to justify buying it yourself.

I think if Jason wants to review this but doesn't want to pay for it, his best bet is to send a couple of emails to a couple different folks at the company informing them of the size of your viewership.

Scott

[DrtyBlvd]

ROFL

You're not wrong Jase - win some lose some - Let me see....free pda? Win! :D

Seriously though - why not sell the stuff that you have as excess baggage via the site? I'm not suggesting you go all 'ebay' on us, but you could auction items with proceeds going to a charity perhasp, or, as charity starts at home, covering your costs before then givng it to your church group maybe?

Tack that on to Scott's comments, and you'd be on a winner all round, no?

[Paragon]

Steve Bush did an on line auction a while back. He found himself in a similar situation to Jason, just wanting to make room for more 'new and improved' junk.

I think what he did was list everything he was going to auction, and it's minimum bid. He then picked an evening , and one of the misc. forums to hold the auction. He would post an item for a few minutes and people posted their bids. at the ned of the specified time who ever had the highest bid won, and the next item went up. I think that all those who participated had fun and many people got something they wanted in return.

Dave

[Jason Dunn]

Guys, no more emails to Heather - I honestly don't want to review the product anymore. ArcSoft doesn't deserve it. :?

[Jason Dunn]

I think what he did was list everything he was going to auction, and it's minimum bid. He then picked an evening , and one of the misc. forums to hold the auction.

But why reinvent the wheel? ebay.com rocks! :D

[DrtyBlvd]

:o

To increase from 17 to 30K, thats why. We trust your auctions Jase!

And we wouldn't have to trawl through all that flotsam & jetsom.
:lol:

[Paragon]

I think what he did was list everything he was going to auction, and it's minimum bid. He then picked an evening , and one of the misc. forums to hold the auction.

But why reinvent the wheel? ebay.com rocks! :D

I don't know....maybe Heather will bid on something. then you could tell her it's for members only. :)

Dave

[Jason Dunn]

And we wouldn't have to trawl through all that flotsam & jetsom.

http://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=kensai2000&include=0&since=-1&sort=3&rows=25

Click on that link - no flotsam or jetsom there! 100% pure joy! :D

[CoffeeKid]

Hey Jason, I empathise with ya. You know what the trick is? Mainstream press, and some gladhandling. Seriously.

Back in January, I was interviewed by Reuters for a story that eventually wound up in some 180+ newspapers around the globe. I thought I was being interviewed for some background stuff, but it turned out I was the feature of the interview.

Let me backtrack a bit here. Before the interview, I was contacting a couple of companies in the coffee and espresso world, asking for samples of products, machines for detailed reviews, you name it.

If I even got a response back, many times it was "hi, who are you?" or "you seriously want us to send you a $300 machine?"

After the interview was published, the fone literally rang off the hook from companies like Thermos Nissan. Bodum, (more famous ones for non-espresso lovers) and companies like Rancilio, Isomac, Elektra, etc (famous to people who like espresso). All wanted to know how they could get product in my hand to publicize. Hell, even the Veep of New Media with Warner Bros Records contacted me about some possible cross promotions (that never went anywhere - her asst scheduled a phone appt, I called, the veep was "somewhere out of town").

So that was good. My site gets about 2200 visitors a day, and roughly 14,000 page views a day. It's increased slightly over the next months. Then a big conference in the coffee world, SCAA, happened, and I went, to "report" on it. I had printouts of what our site was about, what the process was for Detailed Review submission, etc. I got a generally good reception, but what was really cool was that some major players in the world of coffee and espresso knew of me (some before the Reuters story, some after), and at the show, they made introductions to other "players" in the biz. Those three days were valuable to me on several levels

- they increased my advertisers for the site
- more people wanted to send me stuff to evaluate.

Now, I'm in the position where I'm actually turning away $1,000 espresso machines and $500 grinders because I simply don't have any "slots" in my schedule of reviews to fit them in.

I (along with one of our designers and our excellent programmer) spent literally months developing CoffeeGeek.com and in some ways, that work is meaningless; a little article about me in the Chicago Tribune and LA Times and Seattle Post Intelligencer (etc etc) was like "looks who's on the map" for these companies.

Anyway, long story short, the only guys who seem to command serious respect from companies are the dudes heading up the big three (or 3.5) digital photography sites, incl steves-digicams, dpreview, etc. They get all the schwag and respect for all the hours they put into that stuff.

But one thing I'll note - with the possible exception of Phil Askey, it seems to me that those guys cow-tow far too much to their suppliers - for eg, I've never seen a bad review from Steve on major products (some negatives, but usually glossed over). We don't cow tow to our suppliers with the CG site, but I try to be as objective and fair as possible - evaluating products for the intended market, not necessarily for my own likes and wants.

Now we come to PPCThoughts: given that you guys are very blunt at times, it may be scaring some off - and others? Well, they "don't get it". So you need some mainstream press, homes! :)

Mark

[CoffeeKid]

They sent me the card, and guess what? They put a retail value of $180 US on the card (odd since they sell it for $149), which ended up costing me about $75 CND in brokerage, GST, and customs fees. So even when I get "free" stuff, it costs me money just to receive it. Anycom offered to reimburse me for the money it cost me to get the card...until they read my rather poor review and now their President no longer communicates with me.

Ouch. Yeah, I got stung by that as well, early on. Back in Feb, I got kind of smart with receiving items for detailed review on my website. And it also made us look more serious (the fact that I had my Co's law firm give it an official "okay" and slight re-write helped in that area too). Now, when a company submits a product for review to me, there's a contract both of us must sign. It basically outlines my obligations to them, theirs to me, and a rough chart of what will happen (timeframes, not words in the review). I had to toss a carrot to the suppliers, and the carrot is this - if we review a product below 50% acceptable in the ratings I use, the supplier has the right to veto the review outright, and it will never be published.

Their obligations? Every single cost involved - incl. shipping and brokerage fees. If the product is under $250 USD wholesale, it isn't given back. If it's over, they can have it shipped back to them (at their cost), or offer it up for contest giveaway, or allow us to dispose of as we will (with proceeds going to the site costs) (I'm fortunate that every supplier of an over $250 product so far, except one, has offered it up for contest or for "disposal" by us). And if they veto a review, they have to pay us $10 per hour, up to $250, for the time we put into writing the review, researching the product, market testing it, photography, you name it.

So far only one company has veto'ed a review. And so far, every company has paid the duties, shipping and handling costs to Canada. Some don't even blink at it; they consider it an advertising cost. And in return the get about 120 hours of work thrown at a quality review for their product.

Anyway Jason, when I was figuring out how to do detailed reviews, I had no real "game plan" or lessons from anyone - finding this kinda information ain't easy online - most "influencer" websites keep this stuff close to the chest. I kind of had to make it up as I go. Hopefully this will help ya, or at least give you stuff to think about. The contract has done wonders - you may want to consider getting one written up.

[heliod]

Jason, I empathize with you. The fact is that in about one year that my site is online I have had contact with some hundreds of companies.

I must say that many of them really know how to deal with us and how to create a relationship that will bring everything to a WIN-WIN situation, in which we win content and they win traffic and customers.

But there are still a few companies that just don't know how to do it, and sometimes it is not even related to PR agencies.

It was funny you gave the example of anycom. I also have a story with them. This last February, planning my visit to CEBIT, I contacted three companies to set meetings with them: Socket, Pretec, and Anycom. The results were as follows:

Pretec - immediately contacted back by a company representative who set a meeting for during the fair.

Socket - immediately contacted by their PR agent, who not only set a meeting for me with the top two people of the company, but also told me that they would be waiting for me in the fair with a review set.

Anycom - redirected me to their Israeli distributor. It was the stupidiest thing to do, both because this distributor works with 20 companies besides them (including Socket) and because the Bluetooth Market (the technology I stated I was interested in) is still closed in Israel and this guy cannot import their products.

So, there are intelligent and less intelligent companies. Nothing to do about it. We co-operate with those who want to co-operate and ignore those which are almost begging us to ignore them.

[Jason Dunn]

So far only one company has veto'ed a review. And so far, every company has paid the duties, shipping and handling costs to Canada. Some don't even blink at it; they consider it an advertising cost. And in return the get about 120 hours of work thrown at a quality review for their product. Anyway Jason, when I was figuring out how to do detailed reviews, I had no real "game plan" or lessons from anyone - finding this kinda information ain't easy online - most "influencer" websites keep this stuff close to the chest. I kind of had to make it up as I go. Hopefully this will help ya, or at least give you stuff to think about. The contract has done wonders - you may want to consider getting one written up.

That's very interesting! Perhaps as the Pocket PC market matures more, that might become feasible. I can't imagine spending 120 hours reviewing a product though. :-)

[CoffeeKid]

That's very interesting! Perhaps as the Pocket PC market matures more, that might become feasible. I can't imagine spending 120 hours reviewing a product though. :-)

I hear ya. Different market, different products. I based my review style loosely on Phil Askey's supremely excellent digital camera reviews (though I'm nowhere near that exhaustive). I bet Phil spends maybe 200 hours or more on each full review (incl. preview).

For an idea of how detailed our reviews get, check out the most recent one:

http://www.coffeegeek.com/detailed/pavoniprofessional

Seven pages, some 200 photos taken (about 40 or so used), about 26,000 words first draft, down to about 17,000 or so for the review, two test groups organized, all that adds up.

Mark