Tim Almond

There’s been quite some discussion around the decision by Microsoft to send out some very nice top-of-the-range Acer Ferrari laptops preloaded with Windows Vista to a number of high ranking bloggers.

I’ve had a little think on the subject, and I’ve decided that it doesn’t do any favours to accept such gifts. Even as "review products". I’ve heard a few tales of hardware review sites getting graphics cards and under inspection, it turns out that the cards have been tweeked to get some extra performance, in other words, they’ve been set up especially for the review.

I also take quite a strong line with ads on the site - I use Google ads, which in no way dictate content (and are, in fact, dictated by the content). Where I’ve advertised products in the past, they’re companies that I already use like Thomas Pink shirts or Crucial memory. I’ll tell you right here that those are great companies, and I’m earning nothing for doing so.

I’m not sure I quite agree with Joel Spolsky that accepting "gifts" pollutes the whole barrel. We may be going through a phase where blogging is gaining credibility, but we are always going to have bad and good, because of the low barrier to entry. Personally, I consider Joel has already leapt into the quality barrier. His writing and observations are way ahead of most people in the print media.

Tags: Freebies, Business, Information, Internet //