Some of you may have seen the furor over Microsoft and Edelman sending out laptops to bloggers, from the A list to the Z-List.
I've been watching the story pretty directly. I consider myself a pretty reliable source of information to a WIDE WIDE net of people who ask me about technology, from games to computers to phones to photography to stereos. I used to review games on the web for http://www.gamepen.com (god knows who owns that site now, careful with that link!) and I review DVDs and HD DVDs for Home Theater Forum now (http://www.hometheaterforum.com ).
Occaissionally I'll review something just cause I think it's just so damn awesome that I think others ought to get one to enjoy it as much as I have. Products that fit this criteria include things like: The Xbox 360, Playstation3, Panasonic AE 900U projectors etc. I'll also link to products that have serious deficiencies (the most glaring example I can think of is my HD DVD player, the Toshiba HD-A1 which I will replace as soon as a better deck becomes available at a reasonable price point. The remote in particular is horrible on that unit, it takes forever to start up, it takes 45 seconds to just pop a disk out!).
However, most of my reviews are sent to me as media to be reviewed by the manufacturers. Shocking, I know! I don't review everything I get and I dont couch my words when stuff isn't the greatest quality. I'm as honest as I can be and in all of my reviews, it's implicit that readers understand that these vendors have sent their wares to HTf hoping for exposure but understanding that HTFs rep is on the line so there is no guarantee that positive reviews will result.
Let's be clear: I'm not now and never will be a journalist. I'm an Early Adopter who happens to run his mouth off a lot, and I'm willing to spend my time making sure my extended network of contacts makes informed decisions. That network grows every semester as new students go to my infotechbuzz website and somehow figure out I've got other blogs (Not sure how many have seen my little myspace link either, and no I'm NOT linking to that from here!) =) Even more find their way here from my link in my reviews.
If you like my reviews, I hope you keep coming back. I especially hope you patronize HTF (and their sponsors!) since they are the greatest HT community on the net.
Sam
PS If you're Microsoft or Edelman and want an honest review, feel free to hit me with a badass laptop, tho right now I think I'd much rather have a Macbook Pro =) Heck, if you are any kind of PC/HT marketer, gimme a shout, my email's right up there on every page.
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