After seeing a comment about a reviewer in one of the threads on the forum I was prompted to ask myself which reviewers I trust, and which ones are merely advertisers of certain products?
This is really difficult to determine because we don't know what goes on behind the scenes wrt payment for positive reviews (tons of free products, cash, overseas trips etc).
In the early days (three plus years ago) I didn't like reviewers who accepted free products for review because I thought that this might influence them. How things have changed. Pretty much all reviewers now receive all items for free.
All of you who regularly watch Youtube ecig related reviews will have noticed that there is no small amount of competition/friction/love/hate/cooperation/collaboration between reviewers. Apart from the Europe/USA divide, there are cliques and divides which one can pick up.
One of the biggest "problems" arose when reviewers started bringing out their own hardware in collaboration with one or other vape company. This started as a trickle but it has gained momentum. Apparently, there are about 20 reviewer related attys to be released in the next few months. The problems I have with this are :
Some reviewers are anti-clone. Others aren't. Some anti-clone reviewers say nothing about parts of hardware copied by other non-clone manufacturers (velocity/goon decks, top airflow, domed caps etc).
At the end of the day, for whatever reason/s, I think that we all have our favourite reviewers who we trust more than others. In my case, I get really pi***d off when one of my preferred reviewers says or does something I strongly disagree with. I even stopped watching one reviewer because of this.
To prevent this thread from becoming a reviewer bashing exercise, I suggest that we essentially provide a list of around five or so reviewers we follow. Perhaps we could give reasons why we like the reviewers.
These are my top reviewers/channel in no particular order :
This is really difficult to determine because we don't know what goes on behind the scenes wrt payment for positive reviews (tons of free products, cash, overseas trips etc).
In the early days (three plus years ago) I didn't like reviewers who accepted free products for review because I thought that this might influence them. How things have changed. Pretty much all reviewers now receive all items for free.
All of you who regularly watch Youtube ecig related reviews will have noticed that there is no small amount of competition/friction/love/hate/cooperation/collaboration between reviewers. Apart from the Europe/USA divide, there are cliques and divides which one can pick up.
One of the biggest "problems" arose when reviewers started bringing out their own hardware in collaboration with one or other vape company. This started as a trickle but it has gained momentum. Apparently, there are about 20 reviewer related attys to be released in the next few months. The problems I have with this are :
- How much influence did the reviewer actually have? I recently watched an athlete on TV proudly say that he spent a whole day at XXXXX manufacturer "designing" the shoes which would bear his name.
- Were they shown the atty and merely asked their opinion?
- Were they paid a flat rate, or are they being paid a percentage of the sales?
- Is there an unwritten rule that reviewers go easy on fellow reviewers? Like doctors in malpractice cases!
- Would a reviewer be biased out of jealousy?
- Would the reviewer with his/her name on a product give slightly harsher reviews to products coming out at the same time as hers/his?
Some reviewers are anti-clone. Others aren't. Some anti-clone reviewers say nothing about parts of hardware copied by other non-clone manufacturers (velocity/goon decks, top airflow, domed caps etc).
At the end of the day, for whatever reason/s, I think that we all have our favourite reviewers who we trust more than others. In my case, I get really pi***d off when one of my preferred reviewers says or does something I strongly disagree with. I even stopped watching one reviewer because of this.
To prevent this thread from becoming a reviewer bashing exercise, I suggest that we essentially provide a list of around five or so reviewers we follow. Perhaps we could give reasons why we like the reviewers.
These are my top reviewers/channel in no particular order :
- The Vaping Biker
- Vaping with Vic
- Geekay Vapes
- Todds Reviews
- Pegasus Vaping Academy (Richard Ng)
- Mike Vapes
- Vapor trail Channel (Tony B)
- Kzor
)
