I am noticing more disdain and loathing of the "review" lately, especially the online "review". It's no secret that I am trying to get a site off the ground and initially I was looking to make it a review based site. I changed that up this year because I found the pressure to review something in a positive manner since I might have received a discount on many of the products to be overwhelming. That feeling of pressure was never coming from the individual manufacturer actually, I was never asked or told to provide a positive review from anyone in the industry. It was all self manifested, I felt guilt if I said something negative about a product that I was offered a discount on. I did my best to give an unbiased review in the end but I felt that it wasn't the best way to go about building a successful website.
From now on I will be doing product features with a small opinion section. Yep, like a commercial for a product. More quantitative data, less opinion. More closeups of certain areas on the bike and maybe some videos of the suspension cycling (I like those). The main focus of the site is the community side now, that's one of the things I like about our sport anyway, riding with friends and talking about it later. Sharing videos and pictures and funny stories about what happened that day. Maybe we could even get some haters over there to spice things up a bit. I'm still going to have the product feature section on the site because everyone likes to look at pretty new stuff, it's just not the main focus anymore.
I have recently taken on the role of an independent rep for Banshee Bikes in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Obviously I can no longer give a truly unbiased review of the most amazing, awesome and best designed bikes in the industry . I will continue to write up features on components that I mount on my Banshees. That is unless I start to rep components as well, then I'll leave the "reviewing" side of things alone.
I recently read a "review" on pinkbike that was interesting. It seemed to be more about the author expressing how awesome he is through the use of words and sentence structure that he learned in his journalism classes than it was about the product. Sure there was info about the product but there was so much more "blah blah can't use the f-word to describe blah blah." "I'm going to avoid using cliche terms and industry selling labels and therefore be even more cliche than if I actually used that language because I'm trying to relate to those of you who hate it when that language is used in a review. I'm alternative and just like you!" ITS A F'N FREERIDE BIKE THAT IS DESIGNED MORE FOR DH THAN TRAIL RIDING! FVCK! It was disgusting to read and made me almost physically ill. I want to call over there and tell them to STFU. It is unfortunate that many of us consider that site to be somewhat void of value yet they are the true powerhouse of the MTB interweb. Tons of content that the majority of fanboys love to see. They do their homework and its working for them but damn how I wish it wasn't.
Wow, not very diplomatic of me since I'm now an "industry guy" I guess...oops.
BTW, I didn't like any of Schwalbe's versions of the Muddy Mary or Big Betty tires. I also just bent my Gravity Lights after 3 months of ownership and yes that will appear in the "review". I did clip a tree with the pedal but not all that hard. The upside is that FSA/Gravity's customer service is the best I have experienced to date. Whew, glad I got that off my chest.
Damn, dropmachine.com has inspired me!
Where is the MTB internet community headed? What drives you to visit these sites and what turns you off? Could be a good discussion eh?
From now on I will be doing product features with a small opinion section. Yep, like a commercial for a product. More quantitative data, less opinion. More closeups of certain areas on the bike and maybe some videos of the suspension cycling (I like those). The main focus of the site is the community side now, that's one of the things I like about our sport anyway, riding with friends and talking about it later. Sharing videos and pictures and funny stories about what happened that day. Maybe we could even get some haters over there to spice things up a bit. I'm still going to have the product feature section on the site because everyone likes to look at pretty new stuff, it's just not the main focus anymore.
I have recently taken on the role of an independent rep for Banshee Bikes in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Obviously I can no longer give a truly unbiased review of the most amazing, awesome and best designed bikes in the industry . I will continue to write up features on components that I mount on my Banshees. That is unless I start to rep components as well, then I'll leave the "reviewing" side of things alone.
I recently read a "review" on pinkbike that was interesting. It seemed to be more about the author expressing how awesome he is through the use of words and sentence structure that he learned in his journalism classes than it was about the product. Sure there was info about the product but there was so much more "blah blah can't use the f-word to describe blah blah." "I'm going to avoid using cliche terms and industry selling labels and therefore be even more cliche than if I actually used that language because I'm trying to relate to those of you who hate it when that language is used in a review. I'm alternative and just like you!" ITS A F'N FREERIDE BIKE THAT IS DESIGNED MORE FOR DH THAN TRAIL RIDING! FVCK! It was disgusting to read and made me almost physically ill. I want to call over there and tell them to STFU. It is unfortunate that many of us consider that site to be somewhat void of value yet they are the true powerhouse of the MTB interweb. Tons of content that the majority of fanboys love to see. They do their homework and its working for them but damn how I wish it wasn't.
Wow, not very diplomatic of me since I'm now an "industry guy" I guess...oops.
BTW, I didn't like any of Schwalbe's versions of the Muddy Mary or Big Betty tires. I also just bent my Gravity Lights after 3 months of ownership and yes that will appear in the "review". I did clip a tree with the pedal but not all that hard. The upside is that FSA/Gravity's customer service is the best I have experienced to date. Whew, glad I got that off my chest.
Damn, dropmachine.com has inspired me!
Where is the MTB internet community headed? What drives you to visit these sites and what turns you off? Could be a good discussion eh?