Suburban Oblivion

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In reading over the comments in the recent Politics of Mommybloggers and PR post, it struck me how often it came up that people were starting to charge for product reviews.

“…most of my advertisments do pay me, some of my book reviews are just for the book, and include giveaways, but several also pay me and include giveaways.” Qtpies7

“I respond to well-written requests that offer products that interest me, and even then, I don’t guarantee a review unless I really like it, I’m paid for the review (which I will disclose and I still give my honest thoughts) or a giveaway is included for my readers.” Christina

The only person I’ve ever known that charged for reviews was Elizabeth at Table4Five, who has unfortunately had to defend herself quite strongly over her choice to write for PayPerPost. I was under the impression that generally sidebar ads were paid for, and product reviews were not. (To me, PayPerPost is sort of in it’s own little category, since pretty much everyone knows what a sponsored post is.)

So what do you think about paid reviews of say a toy, or a movie? Are you as likely to buy the product or take the review seriously if you know the person was paid to do it? Do you think being paid for a review puts any pressure on the writer to take more care with their words than if they were doing the post on their own? Or should review bloggers look at it as being paid for their time and effort the same as any other profession?

(Updating to add poll to the sidebar, take a second to vote please!)

I hate being on the fence, it’s a real pain, and that’s just the splinters.

Full RSS feed, or partial?

What do you guys do? Do partial feeds annoy you?

I’ve gone back and forth on this, and am finally going back to full feed. I almost hate to do it, because I know I’ll have to keep a sharp eye on where my feed is being fed(partial feeds protect from others running your RSS through their blog) and I suspect my comments will go down. BUT, I also know a lot of people get really annoyed by partial feeds, so back to full feed I go. Prove me wrong and continue to comment, will ya?

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I have finally decided to add an email subscription form again, so just enter your email address in the box in the sidebar to subscribe via email! 100% spam free, and posts will be waiting for you in your inbox even if you miss a day or three! (Great way to get the content if the BlogHer ads annoy you or cause browser problems!)