An interesting comment was raised on my review of Web Hosting Bluebook. Someone by the name of “Internet Marketing Blog” (if you follow their link, you get a blog by the name of “Money Maker Jobs”, and someone posting under the name of “admin”, so finding out the real name isn’t easy) mentioned that “this is the internet” and we’re here to sell people BS. I think that this is an interesting comment for many reasons. Most notably because, as I mentioned in my follow-up comment, that the commenter himself mentions on his own page that “money is not everything” – so if money is not everything, what else is there?
I certainly have a number of thoughts on the subject, but if we’re all here to sell people BS, that implies that money is, indeed, everything. Looking at the monstrous page offered by our commenter, we see 12 posts spread over three months and eight categories, along with four Google boxes. So obviously, our friend is all about the money. But without much content. And I’m wandering now, so let me get to the point, which is that much of what I do is offer reviews. I offer reviews of products, such as keyboards, I’ve reviewed many pieces of software, including downloadable software and services (most recently TypePad). I also review our government. This site is full of reviews, in fact, and I’d venture that all of them are pretty honest.
The question then becomes one of whether accepting payment for a review compromises that honesty. There was a post on Problogger a little while back that went into some discussion on this, and somewhat predictably, the answer was that there was no answer. You generally favor paid reviews or you don’t. There has even been speculation that Google would get into the game (as of this writing, they are not, but that could always change).
It seems to me that the ultimate decision comes down to whether or not the reviewer (in this case, me) will be honest or not.
I think that there is no question that the review I did for the Bluebook is honest. The site certainly has promise – it is nice looking, and is fairly well laid out. But it is also somewhat lacking (notably, a lot of pages turn up parked pages, and it could use some more features). But just because someone pays for a review doesn’t mean that they are going to get a glowing one. My integrity, such as it is, isn’t going to be compromised for a few bucks. Now if you want to write a really, really, large check, I might consider that answer – but not for a small one. And in any case, I’ll always let people know the people reading what’s happening, and if I’m being paid to review something, and if the case should ever arise, if I’m being paid to endorse it as well.
As to whether or not you should do paid reviews? That’s up to you. It’s a slippery slope, and only you can answer the question. A lot of the options will only toss you a few bucks, and for me, I have better things to do with my time. but there are some that are worthwhile. In this case, I think readers of the site might be interested in a hosting review site, so I accepted the review. Unfortunately for the operator of the site, I don’t think they were ready, but hopefully they can learn from it. I think that if the stars align, I’ll do more in the future – but they are going to have to be at least somewhat appropriate to the content of the site, and I’m always going to be honest in my opinion.
What do you think about paid reviews?