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In Reply to: RE: Dunno what to make of 6 Moons new pay-for-review policy. posted by Rick W on July 21, 2014 at 14:07:27
'Eliminate the freeloaders'.
Ok with me.
"The problem with quotes from the internet is that many of them just are just made up."
-Abraham Lincoln
Follow Ups:
.....we're all freeloaders. Every once in a while, we contribute something worthwhile to the web. For free. The vast majority of the time, we pay for bandwidth and expect everything for free in return.
Six Moons' "product" is equipment reviews. The "raw material" for this product is the equipment provided by manufacturers. No equipment, no reviews. No reviews, no product. No product, no business.
Six Moons is banking on enough people going to their website to read their reviews (i.e. "consume their product") so they can charge enough for advertising to be profitable.
Manufacturers provide this raw material for free. In addition, they pay for shipping both ways which can be rather expensive depending on the product in question. And of course once a reviewer has had their grubby little hands on a piece of gear for weeks or months, the manufacturer can no longer sell this piece of gear (rightly) as new, so it has to be discounted.
This in exchange for a review that may or may not garner enough sales to even recoup the costs of providing this raw material.
And you call these guys "freeloaders"?
Six Moons should be thanking their fucking lucky stars that manufacturers are willing to send them equipment for free to review (and say what you will about Consumer Reports, they PAY for everything they review).
Instead, they feel that manufacturers should pay them for the privilege of supplying them their raw materials.
What chutzpah!
I hope every manufacturer boycotts this pay-to-play scheme. And those who don't, whenever they make reference to any Six Moons review of theirs, they should disclose in the same space that they paid for that review. If not, I hope others make an effort to make it publicly known.
May pay-to-play crash and burn.
Eyeballs are sold to advertisers. That's the way the 'free' internet works.If you're getting something 'free' on the internet, YOU are the product.
Edits: 07/24/14
The eyeballs come for the content. No content, no eyeballs. No eyeballs, no advertisers.
And the raw material for content is the free equipment loans.
The fact that you don't understand that fact just makes you an easier product for a web site to acquire and sell.Content, in this model, is nothing more than an acquisition cost.
Edits: 07/24/14
While not exactly my view as a manufacturer its pretty close.
Content is what all magazines in the industry need. Review samples are a source of content.
FWIW it costs something to take a perfectly good example of our work and take it out of the revenue stream. Hopefully the nice review will do us some good down the road and we have got a lot of nice ones over the years. But guess what? Surprise! Just because you got a good review does not mean that you will get any sales boost off of it. Sometimes you do though, IME the latter is less common than the former.
I object to being labeled a 'freeloader'; we did offer an amplifier to Srajan for review some years ago but he refused, on account of the amplifier (S-30, see link) was too hot or something (I've seen him review hotter amps in his pages many times). We've not attempted it since.
But guess what? Surprise! Just because you got a good review does not mean that you will get any sales boost off of it.
Right. It's a risk. And now you have to pay additionally for it.
I object to being labeled a 'freeloader'
And if you compare to the Consumer Reports model, it's the reviewers who are the freeloaders. ;-)
and Srajan completely bass-ackwards.
Just imagine if Srajan didn't have all these small companies clammoring to be reviewed by his magazine? 1) He wouldn't have nearly as many advertisers as he already has and 2) He would have to go out and actively solicit companies to provide him with something to review.
Without products to review he has no business! Unless a webpage of ads and no reviews would ever entice someone to "hang out" on his site. Unlikely at best. Or only those advertisers get "reviewed"...basically his proposal.
The truth is that without his accepting many largely unknown, often Eastern European companies for review, his site would be no better than any of the other half-dozen semi-successful ones out there. Rather than get angry with them for "freeloading" he should be happy that they give his magazine a distinctly "boutique" flavor and less "mass market" as far as high end audio goes. They give him a somewhat unique "product".
> > Six Moons' "product" is equipment reviews. < <
I thought the product was time on reader's eyeballs which they sell to their advertisers. The reviews are eyeball bait. The eye time on ads is assured by nightmarish navigation coupled with embedding ads within content that contains lots of bonus words.
I thought the product was time on reader's eyeballs which they sell to their advertisers. The reviews are eyeball bait.
Yes, the reviews are eyeball bait. But everything stems from the reviews so they are the primary product. The eyeballs they deliver to advertisers are a secondary product.
You are joking right?
So let's say it costs the manufacturer 50 bucks to ship the gear to a 6 moons reviewer each way. 100 bucks.
Nice review...gets linked on the manufacturers website, handed out at audio shows, and generally creates good will and lots of potential sales.
Please tell me where you can get this kind of activity for a 100 bucks.
Get real.
You are the one with the chuztpah.
The Audio Guild? Who the fuck is that. Never heard of you. You best get your ass to UPS and send Srajan a sample.
as far as Srajan, he should call 6 moons what it is now, a Marketing firm....
..and neither should you. No take my advice as well and high tail it over to fed ex and send one of your cables to Srajan.
100 bucks?? Maybe for some headphones.
Ship an amp or speakers and it is closer to 1000 bucks each way.
Switzerland is not in the EU so there is added expenses in the form of import duties to be paid and I am sure not by Srajan.
You are joking right?
Not at all.
So let's say it costs the manufacturer 50 bucks to ship the gear to a 6 moons reviewer each way. 100 bucks.
Nice review...gets linked on the manufacturers website, handed out at audio shows, and generally creates good will and lots of potential sales.
Or not.
And what if it's a $5,000 amplifier that you now have to discount in order to sell it because you can't sell it as new? That's going to cost upwards of $1,000.
Please tell me where you can get this kind of activity for a 100 bucks.
Please tell me how much experience you have as an audio manufacturer.
The Audio Guild? Who the fuck is that. Never heard of you. You best get your ass to UPS and send Srajan a sample.
Been there, done that (this was nine years ago). The review (by Srajan himself) didn't garner so much as a single sales inquiry. Same with a write up in another online review mag. And a company I used to work for got both a very nice review and the cover of Stereophile. No real impact on sales from that either.
But when we decided to produce an aftermarket headphone cable, after a few kind words from a happy customer on one of the forums at HeadFi, the next thing we knew it was all we could do to keep up with the orders.
Didn't cost a dime. We've never done any advertising or had the headphone cables reviewed by a "professional" reviewer. And a little over three years later, my clipboards are still regularly full with orders.
So you'll forgive me if I don't believe that "professional" reviews are some sort of cheap meal ticket to success and that us "freeloaders" should pay for them beyond what's already being paid so that reviewers can get their raw materials for free.
To be fair though you made the decision not to have "professional" reviews done because your experience found them to be rather worthless. Indeed, there are plenty of raved about manufacturers in Stereophile and TAS (the two biggest) who went belly up so it's not like the rave reviews and class A and Product of the years and 5 star editor's choices exactly saved them from bankruptcy.
Although to be fair you never know if someone on a forum read a pro review and then bought one then went on a forum and raved thus appearing like the forum was responsible for sales while it may have germinated from a pro- review.
I am not sure what to make of 6-moons. My concern being a reviewer is that I choose what I want to review at dagogo. I don't care about who advertises or not. But if I liked amp XYZ and want to review them under the 6 moons scheme I would not be able to review XYZ because maybe XYZ doesn't advertise.
Some companies don't advertise as a form of advertising - Rolls Royce in the old days never advertised because they had the view "If you want the best, you know where to find us." And that non advertising model was snooty enough, and they had the product to back it up, to work. Indeed, advertising to them was a source of desperation - if your product was any bloody good it wouldn't need to be advertised.
Then again Rolls failed and got bought out. So there is that.
I don't really think there is a problem with what 6moons is doing - they're up front about it. Manufacturers are in business and they can choose to pay for the review (a form of advertising for them) or not.
Obviously many manufacturers have valued the "Professional" review and have calculated the effectiveness of them.
And one note:
Some companies also ship out gear like headphones to forum regulars for free to try and then rave about on forums. On a forum you also don;t know if you are dealing with a company shill or the owner of the company pretending to be a consumer to rave about their own gear. Sony was caught some years back for putting out Sony Pictures rave movie reviews when the reviewer didn't exist and was dreamed up by their advertising department. With the so called professional review - that is far less likely to happen.
"My concern being a reviewer is that I choose what I want to review at dagogo. I don't care about who advertises or not. "
I had a similar setup with Positive Feedback. I was chasing after manufacturers and importers to give me gear to review that I might find interesting.
Haven't seen one in person, but those resin barrels are gorgeous. You got a Porsche? For racing? Sales must be damn good. Congrats!
Haven't seen one in person, but those resin barrels are gorgeous.
Thanks. The one upshot of our regular machinist pulling up roots and moving to Australia is that we ended up partnering with a high end fountain pen maker to do our barrels. When I saw that particular resin in their materials library, it was love at first sight.
You got a Porsche? For racing? Sales must be damn good. Congrats!
That was my business partner's doing (he runs a cabinet making business of his own). He'd raced snowmobiles—he's Canadian—and motorcycles and has always wanted a race car. He'd been going to the track recently with some friends of his who race and the bug bit him hard. Called me up one day and said "Hey! We've got a race car!" He'd found a deal on a 944 and 28 foot trailer he couldn't refuse.
While it's his car, it will be racing under The Audio Guild's livery.
I wonder: When was the last time a race car ran with an audio company logo. I could easily imagine it happening in, say, the '70s. Anyone know?
I'm sure it hasn't happened in a long time. I'll be looking for you guys on the NASCAR circuit.
Jim
That had a sticker on it from the loudspeaker company Apogee.
JM
Actually Pioneer does quite a lot of race car sponsoring. In fact there was a Porsche out at the track when my partner was there that was sponsored by Pioneer.
But ours might be a first for an audio company outside the mass market.
They're not an audio company. They're a conglomerate that sells audio--especially car audio--among other things. Very different.
They're at least primarily audio.
FWIW, I've got a portable Bose Bluetooth speaker that I'm very fond of, their $300 Soundlink 3 (?) It ain't hi fi, but it doesn't sound tizzy and annoying, or like the sound is coming from inside a can, like most small, inexpensive, modern speakers. And it does do a very cool magic trick, in that the sound that comes out of it seems literally larger than the device itself.
Bose doesn't sell audio they sell lifestyle. Just as expensive watch makers are not in the business of selling watches - they are in the business of selling prestige.
I think the point was about serious hi-fi companies not the likes of Bose or Bang and Oluffson who have dedicated shops in major shopping malls. And for most people such brands are "good enough"
This guy?
Edits: 07/23/14
Oddly, I first heard it in one of those open mall stores, out in the middle of the mall. Chicago I think. Very noisy. Still, I thought it sounded special for such a tiny device, and I was tired of using headphones in hotel rooms. Eventually bought one at the local Apple store. "Special"? That might be saying too much, but it's pleasant enough to listen to.
I should say that I haven't heard it in weeks. My 16-year-old son absconded with it, carried it off to chamber music camp (OK, it was with my permission). Because of it, he tells me, his cabin is the "party cabin", where young pianists and string players hang out until early hours listening to "Shosty" Preludes and Fugues and Beethoven string quartets.
Jim
Ha!
Actually I rather like its design. Might pick one up for the shop.
Fair enough.
But hey, we haven't even hit the track yet. Car still needs to be painted, and for the class we'll be racing in, the roll cage needs to get beefed up a bit, need to get a HANS device, my partner needs to get his racing license, etc. So probably won't be until this fall that we'll be officially racing.
"And what if it's a $5,000 amplifier that you now have to discount in order to sell it because you can't sell it as new? That's going to cost upwards of $1,000."
This is PURE BS. I happen to know that review samples, when reviewers are done, are sent to dealers as demos.
This is PURE BS. I happen to know that review samples, when reviewers are done, are sent to dealers as demos.
Sure, they could do that. If they have any dealers who need demos. Or if they have any dealers at all. Like you said, this is the 21st century. The traditional dealer model isn't what it was and "Internet dealers" don't really bring much to the table unless they're Amazon.
But that's all beside the point. That unit is still going to be sold for less than if it were a new unit.
NINE YEARS AGO? NINE?
Jesus Christ. You did not get single sale from a web review NINE years ago and that somehow has relevance today?
So now that there is broadband internet even in the Himalayas, maybe you will join us in the 21st century?
If you want to continue the conversation, you can send me a telegram.
NINE YEARS AGO? NINE?
Jesus Christ. You did not get single sale from a web review NINE years ago and that somehow has relevance today?
Oh, so you're saying that nine years ago, reviews really weren't worth a shit, but somehow nine years hence they're worth so much they have to be paid for? What, they're waiting reviews differently now?
So now that there is broadband internet even in the Himalayas, maybe you will join us in the 21st century?
How many more eyeballs is Six Moons delivering today compared to nine years ago? The graphs in the article don't show any significant change between 2008 and 2012. Just because there is broadband internet in the Himilayas doesn't mean those eyes are going to Six Moons.
...update the website already!
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