The Current State of Tech Sites @ ViperLair

[Davegod]

The Current State of Tech Sites: As we approach the two year mark of being online, we now have a pretty good feel for what happens behind the scenes... specifically, we have a few things we'd like to get off our chest.

[...]

Yes, it's a sad fact that many websites are heavily influenced by manufacturers to publish favorable reviews. Basically, smaller websites, in order to gather more review samples, are often subject to manufacturer arm twisting to print up a "nice" review, mentioning (or fabricating) the strengths, and ignoring the weaknesses. Trust me, you can spot these reviews a mile away. The problem is, people are reading them, clicking on sponsor links, driving traffic up. Everyone wins here. The tech sites get more traffic. The sponsors get more traffic, and possibly some sales. The readers get information, if that's what you want to call it. The sponsors, as ecstatic as they could be, fire more stuff off to the tech site. Wash, rinse, repeat.

http://www.viperlair.com/articles/editorials/misc/state.shtml

Opinions?

I know theres going to be some flameage here (hence offtopic instead of GH), and all bets THG gets a mention, but try keep it down - I'm hoping theres going to be constructive opinions rather than attacks on specific sites.

Personally I'm of the opinion a review simply requires the reader is able to make their own informed opinion on the product. Deceit and omitting to mention significant info does not allow reader to make an informed opinion, but e.g. using slightly favourable wording whilst still giving all the info in an accurate way, this does provide reader to make informed opinion. Objectivity and consistency are of course important though, so this same attitude must be standard.

To give an example, when i was looking for a new case and googling for reviews, i didnt really care wether the review was biased or not, i just wanted info and formed by own opinion, laregly based on the pics tbh. Looking for a graphics card however I'm fairly reliant on benchmarks (pref with cpu scaling) and reviewer comments on driver etc reliability, noise, so very important the reviewer carries same attitude when commenting on every card.