6Moons New Policy: Support us, with ad revenue, and we will review your product.
- Thread starter Andre Marc
- Start date
Open Dialectic not closed "Expert" Pontificator is the future.
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.
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.
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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.
He had it 100% right. I just noticed that RobertG's post a few pages back was never properly answered when I thought he had it just right. He said "if the content (and writers and servers and domain and administration...) is paid by the manufacturer, then why plaster the pages with advertising?"
Spot on. Ads would no longer be needed. It would purely be about content. Of course many manufacturers *like* ads, whether as their only exposure; or combined or alternated with reviews across multiple magazines to stay in the public eye and promote their brand and latest models. Particularly manufacturer-direct sellers rely on this type of constant exposure when you can't find them in any dealerships. But even for the others, as jchong said, advertising is additional exposure. Whilst I think many reader would prefer pure content without any ads whatsoever, manufacturers might not.
But again, RobertG is spot on by saying that if all content were subsidized my the manufacturers, ads could be eliminated. My apologies for not responding to this sooner.
Spot on. Ads would no longer be needed. It would purely be about content. Of course many manufacturers *like* ads, whether as their only exposure; or combined or alternated with reviews across multiple magazines to stay in the public eye and promote their brand and latest models. Particularly manufacturer-direct sellers rely on this type of constant exposure when you can't find them in any dealerships. But even for the others, as jchong said, advertising is additional exposure. Whilst I think many reader would prefer pure content without any ads whatsoever, manufacturers might not.
But again, RobertG is spot on by saying that if all content were subsidized my the manufacturers, ads could be eliminated. My apologies for not responding to this sooner.
Consumer Reports which is Consumers Union - doesn’t sell advertising and relies on print and web subscriptions ( $30, or $6.96 monthly respectively) and Grants and fundraising to pay the bills at its offices. You want detail here is their financial report 2012, 2013. http://consumersunion.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Consumers_Union_Financial_Statements_2013.pdf
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 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.
Dallas and a LOT of
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.
In a review, just give me your honest opinion on the product be it Audio gear, a bicycle etc.. and let the review not be influenced by some personal expenditure made to obtain this product, which it seems that is noticeable a lot of times in forums as it's hard to trash a product you have just spent thousands of dollars on.
Rare exceptions like Consumer Reports aside, this is the way of the world. Even paywalled newspapers like the New York Times still have advertising within the paywalled site, because the subscriber base still cannot wholly fund the unique content.
The unique content of a website (the content that you hopefully want to read) is its primary product, but currently in the audio market it can gain no revenue from supplying its primary product to its primary consumers. Therefore, if a site is to survive, it needs to find an alternate revenue stream; be that advertisers, site sponsors, the patronage of 17th Century French Royalty, the personal finances of the site owner, or some other means whereby the bills get paid.
A separation between advertising and editorial exists, however the monies make it into the bank, because editorial treats advertisers like old-fashioned patronage. Prince Leopold's patronage meant he got to hear Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier first, and that he got it dedicated to him. His patronage did not extend to saying "I don't like it in F# maj. Write it in B minor instead!" Similarly, an advertiser gets a better chance of its product getting a review slot than a non-advertiser. They do not get to dictate the content of that review.
Our current model allows non-advertisers the chance of a review slot, too. The content of that review is similarly not dictated by the manufacturer. And we give both advertisers and non-advertisers alike their best shot at goal. Where this falls down is some companies take significant advantage of that wider patronage, crying foul when the system they don't contribute to finally says 'no' (more specifically, crying foul when taken to task about copyright theft, but that's another story). When a manufacturer not only actively wants a review, but also wants its rivals to fund that review, you tend to start thinking of them as a bit of a moocher.
I'm not entirely convinced of Srajan's model (but I have respect for him making it), as I feel it creates too direct a link between advertising and review spaces on the site. This doesn't mean the reviews themselves need be any different in terms of content, and one would assume editorial independence of the content at least is preserved. 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.
OK I got a question
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?
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?
Ralph, one quick comment..Srajan's cost of entry is actually pretty low. If a new firm cannot even afford that kind of small capital outlay, they may want to think twice
and they may not even qualify as a business. Just my thoughts.
True enough if only one magazine employs the practice. What if they all did?
I really also want to know if this could be solved by simply raising advertising rates too.
I really also want to know if this could be solved by simply raising advertising rates too.
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.
Atmasphere: As Andre Marc said, my cost of entry is very low. Most manufacturers we review don't make any product that retails for anywhere near for this little. Any newcomer who can't afford that really doesn't qualify as a proper business. As I've stated elsewhere, I never had any issue with doing free reviews for start-ups. My issue is with clearly successful companies abusing that same willingness to get review after review without any compensation for us whatsoever. Obviously this can be managed. You can simply say no. So you could say that I've fallen victim to my own generosity if I've allowed myself to be abused. But then you're not allowed to ask for ads to get paid to do reviews -
Thinking over how the current system works (where each commercial magazine determines how many free reviews they want to carry vs. those who are paid for, indirectly as is claimed, by advertising), I kept coming back to the inherent unfairness and imbalance of it where 'generous' manufacturers are expected to carry the bag for the rest. The only solution I see is to make everyone pay something. So I've deliberately made our entry fee very low - *far* lower than any amp you sell.
And to call a spade a spade: If commercial magazines are expected to offer free business support to start-up makers, are more successful makers expected to give away free equipment to those who can't afford it? Because when you apply consistency, that's what it boils down to -
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.
Atmasphere: As Andre Marc said, my cost of entry is very low. Most manufacturers we review don't make any product that retails for anywhere near for this little. Any newcomer who can't afford that really doesn't qualify as a proper business. As I've stated elsewhere, I never had any issue with doing free reviews for start-ups. My issue is with clearly successful companies abusing that same willingness to get review after review without any compensation for us whatsoever. Obviously this can be managed. You can simply say no. So you could say that I've fallen victim to my own generosity if I've allowed myself to be abused. But then you're not allowed to ask for ads to get paid to do reviews -
Thinking over how the current system works (where each commercial magazine determines how many free reviews they want to carry vs. those who are paid for, indirectly as is claimed, by advertising), I kept coming back to the inherent unfairness and imbalance of it where 'generous' manufacturers are expected to carry the bag for the rest. The only solution I see is to make everyone pay something. So I've deliberately made our entry fee very low - *far* lower than any amp you sell.
And to call a spade a spade: If commercial magazines are expected to offer free business support to start-up makers, are more successful makers expected to give away free equipment to those who can't afford it? Because when you apply consistency, that's what it boils down to -
So let's say I build a new DAC and send it to you with the appropriate payment. You think it sounds terrible. Do you keep the fee and publish a scathing review, or return my DAC and my money and continue to run a very positive site?
Tim
Tim
Phelonious: I assume you've read our policy. Then you'll already know two things. A/ do your due diligence on the reviewer, B/ if you're not happy with the outcome, you can request a second opinion from a second writer. These are both mentioned clearly in my article.
About A/, our archives are listed by writer. It's very easy for you to 'vet' a writer on their style, their biases, what they own, what their room is like... it's all there. Doing that due diligence is your job, not ours. So let's say you've identified our resident DAC expert; or the one whose tastes most coincide with what you think your DAC sounds like. You've committed with your payment and the assignment is a go.
If the review is *scathing* as you put it, your DAC must have been terrible. Because we wouldn't write such a review unless there was concrete evidence to support such a claim. It wouldn't lock to signal. It dropped out. It had a channel imbalance. It was shoddily made. Its transformer hummed. Its display failed. The paint was peeling. The list of things that would have to be wrong to merit a scathing review is quite long. Phelonious, you're a crap DAC designer! -
What's far more likely is that everything is at least competent, works as it should, is priced as it should for what it is and all that. Now it's down to small niggles and sonic commentary. Small niggles couldn't possibly make for a scathing review. Could sonic commentary? Unless the DAC was truly terrible, I don't think so. A writer's biases always show up as preferences but that doesn't make for a scathing review either. And we won't have any compatibility issues with a DAC as one might have with the wrong speaker for a given room; or an underpowered amp for an application. Such matters are handled upfront and part of your own vetting. Does the reviewer have the right gear, the right room and the proper experience with your type device? It's also part of my job as the publisher to assign the right writer to the right gear and consider his exposure/experience level.
I wouldn't publish a review where a writer got personal and forgot that it's not about what he likes; but to describe what something sounds like. It's perfectly okay to interject personal likes. It's not okay to get personal and condemn a product just because it fails to match your taste. If you describe its sonics to the best of your ability and then state "this wasn't for me, I like my DAC better and here's why"... then I'd not call it a scathing review. I'd call it a qualified review that didn't end up in the rave you may have liked -
B/ If regardless you felt the review failed to do justice to your equipment and you have really serious issues with it... then you'd get a second writer (and no, you'd not pay extra). If a product was truly bad of course, a second writer would merely say so again. Now you've got a double whammy. Bad idea but your call.
To be honest, to me these are mostly abstract concerns. We don't accept everything for review we're offered. We do a certain amount of pre-vetting ourselves. Our staff and abilities are limited. We can only process so much. Do we want to waste our time on stuff that reeks of trouble? No. Do we accept stuff we know we're gonna hate just so we can write the scathing review the perennial conspiracy theorists are waiting for as proof of a magazine's objectivity? Hell no.
Of course none of it eliminates the potential for a lemon to slip through here and there but in my experience, outright lemons really are very rare. A product simply doesn't survive in the market place if it's that bad. And if a reviewer does come across one and doesn't say so, the boards will be on a witch hunt when first owners post on blown-up units and the lot. Rightly so too.
In the real world, there are plenty of normal checks and balances along the way. Anyone working on the internet is subject to real-time instant inspection, commentary, criticisms and comparisons. Anyone playing games, being way off and demonstrably wrong most of the time just doesn't make it. If he's not fired, people simply stop reading him. Or those who do do so for pure amusement to ridicule the guy on the forums afterwards.
If you actually were a DAC maker, you'd look at all your review exposure options carefully. You'd not come to me/us if you thought we were whack jobs, would you? With 12 years of reviews in our archives and at your finger tips, you can vet us to your heart's content. If you don't do that work; and if don't know that I've got a Vega and Hex and Eximus and Aqua DAC in inventory; and then act surprised that I compared yours to four class leaders which cost the same as your DAC and and found yours wanting... well, then you didn't do your home work on multiple fronts, did you? That's why, unlike most, we publish photos of our systems too. It's all about data points to relate to a given writer and his work.
I feel very confident saying that we've been nothing but consistent. You might like us, you might not but we're not arbitrary. You pretty much know going in what you're going to get.
About A/, our archives are listed by writer. It's very easy for you to 'vet' a writer on their style, their biases, what they own, what their room is like... it's all there. Doing that due diligence is your job, not ours. So let's say you've identified our resident DAC expert; or the one whose tastes most coincide with what you think your DAC sounds like. You've committed with your payment and the assignment is a go.
If the review is *scathing* as you put it, your DAC must have been terrible. Because we wouldn't write such a review unless there was concrete evidence to support such a claim. It wouldn't lock to signal. It dropped out. It had a channel imbalance. It was shoddily made. Its transformer hummed. Its display failed. The paint was peeling. The list of things that would have to be wrong to merit a scathing review is quite long. Phelonious, you're a crap DAC designer! -
What's far more likely is that everything is at least competent, works as it should, is priced as it should for what it is and all that. Now it's down to small niggles and sonic commentary. Small niggles couldn't possibly make for a scathing review. Could sonic commentary? Unless the DAC was truly terrible, I don't think so. A writer's biases always show up as preferences but that doesn't make for a scathing review either. And we won't have any compatibility issues with a DAC as one might have with the wrong speaker for a given room; or an underpowered amp for an application. Such matters are handled upfront and part of your own vetting. Does the reviewer have the right gear, the right room and the proper experience with your type device? It's also part of my job as the publisher to assign the right writer to the right gear and consider his exposure/experience level.
I wouldn't publish a review where a writer got personal and forgot that it's not about what he likes; but to describe what something sounds like. It's perfectly okay to interject personal likes. It's not okay to get personal and condemn a product just because it fails to match your taste. If you describe its sonics to the best of your ability and then state "this wasn't for me, I like my DAC better and here's why"... then I'd not call it a scathing review. I'd call it a qualified review that didn't end up in the rave you may have liked -
B/ If regardless you felt the review failed to do justice to your equipment and you have really serious issues with it... then you'd get a second writer (and no, you'd not pay extra). If a product was truly bad of course, a second writer would merely say so again. Now you've got a double whammy. Bad idea but your call.
To be honest, to me these are mostly abstract concerns. We don't accept everything for review we're offered. We do a certain amount of pre-vetting ourselves. Our staff and abilities are limited. We can only process so much. Do we want to waste our time on stuff that reeks of trouble? No. Do we accept stuff we know we're gonna hate just so we can write the scathing review the perennial conspiracy theorists are waiting for as proof of a magazine's objectivity? Hell no.
Of course none of it eliminates the potential for a lemon to slip through here and there but in my experience, outright lemons really are very rare. A product simply doesn't survive in the market place if it's that bad. And if a reviewer does come across one and doesn't say so, the boards will be on a witch hunt when first owners post on blown-up units and the lot. Rightly so too.
In the real world, there are plenty of normal checks and balances along the way. Anyone working on the internet is subject to real-time instant inspection, commentary, criticisms and comparisons. Anyone playing games, being way off and demonstrably wrong most of the time just doesn't make it. If he's not fired, people simply stop reading him. Or those who do do so for pure amusement to ridicule the guy on the forums afterwards.
If you actually were a DAC maker, you'd look at all your review exposure options carefully. You'd not come to me/us if you thought we were whack jobs, would you? With 12 years of reviews in our archives and at your finger tips, you can vet us to your heart's content. If you don't do that work; and if don't know that I've got a Vega and Hex and Eximus and Aqua DAC in inventory; and then act surprised that I compared yours to four class leaders which cost the same as your DAC and and found yours wanting... well, then you didn't do your home work on multiple fronts, did you? That's why, unlike most, we publish photos of our systems too. It's all about data points to relate to a given writer and his work.
I feel very confident saying that we've been nothing but consistent. You might like us, you might not but we're not arbitrary. You pretty much know going in what you're going to get.
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.
That's a high-minded goal that I suspect will be hard to maintain.
Are you viewing this as a non-refundable submission fee, or is it a 'pay for play' green light for an assignment that's already in the work in progress stage?
Personally, I think you will find it difficult to disabuse manufacturers of the notion that if a review is contingent upon advertising from your perspective, then advertising is contingent upon reviews. Random companies dangling a carrot are not the problem, because you don't have to take the carrot, and there's always another company with another carrot waiting for its moment. But sooner or later a regular advertiser is going to start asking for its pound of flesh.
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...
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...
I think you've crossed a fairly dangerous line here. You seem to be focusing on the revenue stream and not the customer. Uniquely in the case of media outlets, they are not the same entity.
Currently you (and me, and every other editor out there) get to dictate editorial content based on where we think our respective readerships interests lie. The duty of an editor is to not get this spectacularly wrong, and lose the readership. This editorial content is not influenced by the advertisers; however, when it comes to selecting products for review, patrons often get preferential treatment, just as they might at an opera house.
However, if your editorial content is all patronage, this changes the editorial direction. It moves it from 'what I think the readers want' to 'what I think the readers want and I can raise money for'. Even if the end result is exactly the same content, with the same products, and with exactly the same conclusion, the directly-linked financial concern involved weakens the force of the arguments made in the editorial content. The implication is; "is that the best because it is the best, or is the the best of those prepared to pay?" There is not even an underlying perfidious implication there; if you skew your content toward those who pay for their reviews, how do you know what those who are unwilling to pay can do?
The situation is different in Japan, in part because every magazine has the same system in place, and because the financial donation is all wrapped up in 'giri' - it is a token of your obligation as manufacturer that you respect the reviewer to perform their obligations as a reviewer. It's not a concept we 'get' here at all, but it's nothing to do with 'paying' for a review.
I agree that the system as it stands is broken, but I think you put a splint on the wrong leg.
Alan Sircom: "Is that the best because it is the best, or is the the best of those prepared to pay?" Here you lost me, Alan. Sorry. That's not even an issue. We're not concerned with *best*. Anyone who is has to first admit that it would necessitate intimate exposure to *everything*. Clearly not possible. The best (sorry) we can say about best is what a given writer has encountered and feels represents the creme of that assortment. That is always a function of exposure and the filter inherent in it. Do we care what the nature of the filter is? A filter of some sort will always exist. My writers aren't instructed to hunt for the best. They're instructed to describe what something sounds like and then to place it in context. In context, best is always relative. As such it's not terribly meaningful to anyone unless their context overlapped. And if a freelance writer contributes three or four reviews a year whilst a few might do 6 or 8... how meaningful is any 'best' in such a limited context in the first place? If someone did, say 60 reviews a year, now his or her context would be broader and become more meaningful perhaps. But the same filter principle applies. It's just a little less limited. So again, to me that's not even an issue. We don't publish any 'best of' issue in the first place -
As to Japan, yes, it's a very different system which works because everyone abides by it. Does that mean that because our system is broken (and you're not the only one to agree with me on that so cheers - other guys simply don't want to be on public record), one shouldn't attempt to find a better solution? Should one wait until there's some unilateral move whereby somehow, magically, all the magazines in the West collaborate to address the current issues and then, more magically still, agree to what the perfect/better solution is and then all commit? And all that within a culture that looks at colleagues and fellow publications as competitors? I feel too pragmatic to believe that would happen. I've not seen sufficient evidence of admission, by high-profile publishers, that the system is badly broken. All I see (and perhaps I don't know where to look) is repeat insistence and promise that the Chinese wall between Editorial and admin isn't breached. And because it isn't, there's no problem. It's irksome and tiresome. In it I don't see even an opening to do anything about it. It looks more like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Case in point? What other publisher has joined this discussion aside from you (kudos by the way and thanks?)? I'd love to be proven wrong and pointed at similar type of discussions I might have overlooked as they pertain to the audio sector -
I might be pig-headed, delusional, idealistic or plain up for a new adventure but I need to address things now. Someone's gotta be first to try...
As to Japan, yes, it's a very different system which works because everyone abides by it. Does that mean that because our system is broken (and you're not the only one to agree with me on that so cheers - other guys simply don't want to be on public record), one shouldn't attempt to find a better solution? Should one wait until there's some unilateral move whereby somehow, magically, all the magazines in the West collaborate to address the current issues and then, more magically still, agree to what the perfect/better solution is and then all commit? And all that within a culture that looks at colleagues and fellow publications as competitors? I feel too pragmatic to believe that would happen. I've not seen sufficient evidence of admission, by high-profile publishers, that the system is badly broken. All I see (and perhaps I don't know where to look) is repeat insistence and promise that the Chinese wall between Editorial and admin isn't breached. And because it isn't, there's no problem. It's irksome and tiresome. In it I don't see even an opening to do anything about it. It looks more like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Case in point? What other publisher has joined this discussion aside from you (kudos by the way and thanks?)? I'd love to be proven wrong and pointed at similar type of discussions I might have overlooked as they pertain to the audio sector -
I might be pig-headed, delusional, idealistic or plain up for a new adventure but I need to address things now. Someone's gotta be first to try...
FWIW, we consumers often complain that reviews are biased and walking a fine line, because we see an attempt to mostly tout the positives in a component under review and just about never the negatives, in an effort to raise advertising revenue - we simply view the whole reviewing thing as a business that needs to flourish, and not a public service; exceptions are VERY rare. Therefore, people like me (who may just be in the minority) simply don't take reviews very seriously, and TAS for example, has been ridiculed many times in this forum and others. Thus, I think Srajan's new approach will probably dilute his e-zine's credibility to the point of some of us simply not caring about 6moons anymore, save for the industry news.
My suggestion would be to look at redoing the reviewing approach, with a flashy downloadable PDF e-zine like Tone Audio; I think Tone got it (the format and overall look-and-feel) right, though it has zero influence on me personally (I go through each issue in about 10 mins) because I find no real substance in most of their reviews, especially those by its publisher (and just don't care about the music they review, nor do I care about the unrelated paraphernalia they often push). Unlike Tone, though, to me 6moons' review content is of much higher quality. I think Srajan's new approach is a high stakes gamble, with all possible consequences. Having said all this, I wish them success.
My suggestion would be to look at redoing the reviewing approach, with a flashy downloadable PDF e-zine like Tone Audio; I think Tone got it (the format and overall look-and-feel) right, though it has zero influence on me personally (I go through each issue in about 10 mins) because I find no real substance in most of their reviews, especially those by its publisher (and just don't care about the music they review, nor do I care about the unrelated paraphernalia they often push). Unlike Tone, though, to me 6moons' review content is of much higher quality. I think Srajan's new approach is a high stakes gamble, with all possible consequences. Having said all this, I wish them success.