Sunday, July 12, 2009

What Would You Do?


I just saw Heather Armstrong from Dooce on GMA speaking about mommy bloggers receiving products and money from companies to write about products on their blogs. I obviously am not a mommy blogger and won't be for atleast a few years, but I still have an opinion on this subject.

I have no problem accepting products sent to me for free to write about. My only condition is the companies fully understand that if their product truely sucks I will tell the world... ok the people who accidentally end up here, how I feel about the product.

Unfortunately, I have not been sent anything and I'm sure after that last comment I probably never will. Oh Well...

Also, my point of this post is, not that I'm suprised, but that Heather Armstrong had no problem saying she was against accepting perks from companies to promote their products. I'm thinking this is a very controversial issue among mommy bloggers, and I enjoy hearing different people's opinons on issues when they aren't bashing the other side just stating that this is why they do things this way (hers was preserving the trust of her audience).

I would enjoy free stuff, does that make me a sellout? What is your opinion?

3 comments:

Adam said...

Regardless of how we feel, the FTC may be coming down on bloggers who get freebies or commissions from companies and don't disclose it. That also includes if referral links, such as those with amazon. The main reason for this is supposedly for viral marketing, and blogs set up just to promote products but that don't actually say that they are run by the company...

Myself, I don't really care what someone else gets. Myself? I'd love to receive free stuff. The internet usually polices itself. If someone does nothing but hawk bad products, nobody will go there to read about it because the blog will suck.

Kelvin Oliver said...

Sometimes I too much don't care to get anything free, like products in this case, to review. However, I have noticed many other bloggers that get review products and may write what the people want to hear but not what the reviewer truly feels. So it is kind of like should I use the product or not.

Anonymous said...

If getting free junk makes me a sellout, call me a sellout. I'll be a sellout with a bunch of free junk. I see nothing wrong with this practice as long as the reviewer is honest in their assessment of the product. If I got free junk and it was literal junk, I'd say so, but in a round about way. Like, "Would make great paper weight!" People would get the idea, and if they didn't, they probably shouldn't own said product. They may choke on the small parts.