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In Reply to: Excellent Link..thanx! (nt)....may not renew subscription to other mags now! posted by abajaj11 on June 01, 2004 at 06:40:24:
Bound for Sound has been around for 15 years already without taking any advertising.
Follow Ups:
In my opinion, BFS is erratic ( at best ) in terms of keeping up with their monthly printing schedule. As it is right now, they haven't put out an issue in over two months. On top of that, they haven't responded to emails as i was trying to find out when we can expect a new issue.If one were to subscribe to BFS and decide that they didn't like it for whatever reason and decide to cancel your subscription, they'll pro-rate your refund. How they do this is that they charge you for the issues that you've received at retail price and then refund the difference. Given that they value each issue of BFS at $3.50 retail, cancelling even after a few issues will pretty much decimate any refund that you have coming.
Other than that, BFS typically covers gear that most other rags don't cover. What you end up with is one person's point of view on each component, there is no technical info or testing presented and you may not agree with the personal preferences of the individual reviewers writing the articles. I used to find it interesting to read and took a long terms subscription, but if i had it to do all over again, i would do things quite differently. Obviously, this is only my personal opinion based on my personal experiences with BFS. Sean
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But it does not TAKE ADVERTISING!
So they actually cover products they are interested in....admittedly subjectively, but our hobby is subjective anyways!
-akhilesh
advertisng, we review stuff we are interested in too. The vast majority of what we review is by request from our writers and not because our advertisers require it. I do not think that simply by taking advertising dollars one is "locked into" some agenda or should be viewed as being circumspect.
Hmm....
As a consumer, I tend to place greater trust in a source that is not being paid by the products it is reviewing (or hoping to be paid by the products it is reviewing). I think this is belief is shared by almost all consumers.
Anyways, just my 2 cents
-akhilesh
but it is not necessarily valid for one and all. We write what we write regardless if they are our advertisiers or not - and much of what we review is from products by people who do not advertise with PFO. If you read our site, you will find many "balanced" reviews (the good with the bad) of products from one and all.
If what you say is true, then one could infer that products from advertisers (or those that we want to advertise) would read as being of a more favorable review than those from people who do not advertise. And as such, would not be reported on as being good in those publications that do not accept advertising. The facts do not support (at least with this with PFO). In reading BFS (an obvious example) I find many products that have been reviewed not only in PFO, but elsewhere, receiving similar write-ups when one reads between the lines (biases, system synergies, etc.).
That is, even in magazines that do not take advertsing, you will find reviews that for the most part, report very similar takes on gear that has been reviewed by those that do take advertising. True, there may be people who will write what they need to write to make sure the money flows in, and if one does not require the money they are "freer" to write what their heart tells them to - though they may have other agendas that are just as damaging to the field as well. But I really do not think that because Marty does not take advertising he is any less or more likely to say product X is good or bad than we are just because we will accept advertisng. If so, then by right I should find way more discrepancy between the two publications.
Truth be told, one is more likely to offer a fair and honest review so that people will want to send you gear when asked. If they think that only money can buy a good review, than only those companies that can pay up would receive them - and they don't. There is a lot of good gear around and speaking for the PFO crowd, "Who wants to spend time and effort reviewing crap?!"
If tomorrow PFO lost its advertising dollars, our content would not change. PFO has advertising to pay our writers as much as we can, to cover costs of the website and operation, and to pay the principal owners for their time. We all have day jobs that pay our bills.
I like this one a lot! Seems the best i have seen so far. Thanx!
-akhilesh
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