Would Alan Freed do it again?

I see that Ed Bott has his panties in a bunch over criticism of the Windows Vista marketing effort.

Good Lord!

Payola was wrong when it was DJ’s in the 60’s and it’s wrong now.

If one were to accept a high price piece of equipment in exchange for a favourable review, then clearly, one should not be surprised if the impartiality of the reviewer should be called into question.

Would the reviewer be quite so glowing in their praise if they had paid their own money for a licence to install the software on their own personally purchased software?

It doesn’t matter which company uses these tactics. The company has the resources and is within their rights to offer “promotional merchandise”.

It is up to the reveiwer to decide whether or not their reputation is worth the 30 pieces of silver. Just don’t be surprised if the audience votes with their feet when they find out the truth.

I didn’t post the original comment, but if you want to call me an anonymous coward then go right ahead, but NOBODY paid me, either in cash or in kind, to make this comment.

It is human nature to ignore the gift of $1000 worth of equipment whilst making an independent assesment of the merits of a sponsor’s product, even when the individual concerned dtakes every possible step to maximise their cents per click from a randomly placed advertisement.

Yeah right…