How do I get me some of that?
May 20, 2004 11:57 AM   Subscribe

How do small product review sites get a hold of all the products they review? For example, does DCResource actually spend $1599 in order to write this review? I understand that well-known media sources like CNET or Tom's Hardware Guide can get manufacturers to ship them evaluation units (to be returned after writing a review). But how do you go about getting to that point? And is there an on-the-cheap way of doing it without getting the manufacturer's help? A retail store with a realllly forgiving return policy, for example?
posted by scarabic to Technology (7 answers total)
 
My understanding from reading various review sites is that there are a fixed number of products that are set aside for review, and like the easy girl in high school, get passed around. That's why some sites get reviews "faster".

So how do they get them? Call up the marketing department and ask for a review camera. If you can convince them you are legitimate and big enough, they'll send you one. Every so often, a product review site that's moderately sized will complain about how they didn't get the new big thing after asking for it.

Small, small desperate sites review crappy products they get from crappy companies. The bad thing about this is that if you review the products as crappy, people stop sending them to you. But if you review them as good, you loose legitimacy.

Sites like Tom's Hardware probably got started out by him having personal contacts with in the industry to get ahold of the newest hardware. I would say it would be hard for someone with no industry affiliation and no contacts to just start a review site from scratch.

The liberal return policy might work though.
posted by geoff. at 12:15 PM on May 20, 2004


Response by poster: It reminds me of working in the arts & entertainment section of my college paper. If we'd only reviewed the books and albums that got sent into us for free, we'd have written about nothing but backwater crap no one had ever heard of or was ever likely to.

Let's say for the sake of the product review question that you don't want to just write reviews of whatever you can get your hands on. Let's say you want to write a review of a particular product, the "Sony XYZ1," for example. How would you attempt to get your hands on that particular one?
posted by scarabic at 2:49 PM on May 20, 2004


Ask? Call the corporate HQ and ask for Marketing or Publicity or Media Relations. But if you're not real media, don't be surprised if they say no.

Also: When I worked at a legit magazine, we didn't get to keep high-end items like electronics. We often got them for two weeks for review purposes and then returned then.
posted by GaelFC at 3:40 PM on May 20, 2004


And just to address a particular point of the post, I'd say that Jeff Keller and his DCResource page are both respected and well known enough to get review copies of the latest schwag.
posted by jalexei at 6:41 PM on May 20, 2004


I've written a few technical book reviews for slashdot, and now I get my tech books for free. Some of them were offered to me without my asking. And to get the first one, I signed up for a "reader review program" with one publisher.

Oddly, some people write me email now, asking my advice about technical books. Cackle cackle.
posted by bingo at 4:40 AM on May 21, 2004


I review Toys and Action figures, and after 2 or three years doing it, I have begun to get toys for free. Got one in the mail a few days ago actually.

In terms of the toy industry, you have to find out who a particular companies PR firm is. Rarely do the manufacturers send out their own samples.
posted by quibx at 9:23 AM on May 21, 2004


Loaners for electronics (up to and including brand-new computers) are the norm. Factors that influence how easily you get one of these loaners include:
  1. How large your publication is. Some Web sites are deemed large enough these days.
  2. Your stature in the industry. Walt Mossberg gets whatever he wants-- too much, according to the recent Wired profile.
  3. The quantity they have available. Yes, Walt Mossberg gets it before you do.
  4. The originality of your angle. I reviewed a PVR for accessibility, for example. In this case, the following also applied:
  5. Your relationship with the publicists. If they know you and they know you have produced in the past, they'll work with you.
Factoid: When I was writing about music, labels would send me up to three dozen unwanted CDs and tapes per week. It took two years of prodding to take me off the automatic mailouts and to receive only what I wanted, which, unaccountably, they gave me grief over. For low-value items like those, spending more money to blanket unwilling noncombatants makes more sense to labels than giving writers what they want.
posted by joeclark at 4:10 PM on May 21, 2004


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