The Wirecutter worked because a reader could understand that its source of income was affiliate links for quality consumer goods. And we trusted that it'd be critical and honest.
On the other hand, a media company that relies on advertising for a significant chunk of its revenue naturally seems like it will have a conflict of interest between its advertisers and the products it may be reviewing.
Anyways, congrats to Brian Lam and co., but I'm curious how this would benefit the Times in the long run.
It's definitely concerning, but doesn't an affiliate link business model also have potential conflicts of interest? There's a direct financial incentive to recommend products from sellers with more generous referral programs, as well as a bias toward more expensive products (assuming the kickback is percentage based).
Hopefully the NYT is smart enough to realize that all the value is in the reputation and maintain an open and transparent hands-off editorial policy. Keeping the articles as detailed and comprehensive as they are is also important, but still leaves room for advertiser pressure through omission of viable alternatives while retaining the appearance of objectivity.
The majority of links are to Amazon's product listing. Sometimes with alternate links (I've seen Jet.com and Homedepot.com type links). All reliable web stores.
You're right that its percentage based, so there may be a slight bias toward higher priced items, but I haven't seen it. I bought a recommended non-stick pan off thesweethome yesterday, and they explicitly talk about price range being good to go a bit cheaper and just buy a new one more often, rather than a more expensive one (to minimize the effects of wear that hit even expensive ones). So they recommend a cheaper pan than they could have.
Yes, that's the point I was trying to make. They've cultivated a reputation for independence, despite possible conflicts of interest, but that's more difficult to maintain when your customer base knows you are exposed to advertiser pressure. Hopefully they can pull it off.
The difference of a fixed percentage on a variable cost is very minor. If you're recommending a $100 monitor with a 4% affiliate fee, that's $4. A $150 monitor is $6. Making good recommendations (i.e. stuff people want to buy) will easily outweigh the payment difference.
Still, it's important to have a policy about it and be transparent - which Wirecutter (and the NYTimes surely) has.
That's one way to look at it. Another is that, when affiliate fees are your only source of revenue, replacing all your $4 fees with $6 fees increases revenue by 50%. That's potentially huge. If you're running the company, you have to take it on faith that keeping your integrity will continue to improve word-of-mouth sales by more than 50% over the long run. And there's a constant temptation to change your mind, especially if your growth curve starts to taper off.
I'm just saying the math isn't so cut-and-dry that we consumers don't have to remain vigilant.
Yes you will notice that the related site thesweethome rarely includes Ikea products or any other company that does not have a lucrative affiliate program in the comparison.
I don't think this is true. Ikea is often included in Sweethome comparisons for which Ikea has products, but the overlap between what Ikea sells (mostly furniture) and the Sweethome reviews (lots of tools, small appliances, kitchen electronics, etc.) is not that great. But Ikea products seem to have been included in all the reviews related to mattresses or bedding, flatware, dishes, pots and pans, etc.: http://thesweethome.com/?s=ikea
Does the NY Times have a history of usurping acquisitions and milking them for money? This is a company who leans on its reputation a great deal, so I would think that they would recognize its value. But like you say, money will talk.
I purchased the top bluetooth headphones reviewed on Wirecutter, and they were so preposterously bad that my only possible conclusion was that the reviews weren't objective. My friend had the same experience with same headphones (JLab Epic).
I'm curious about this as well. Hopefully NYT realizes that the property can help the company build trust with consumers and focuses on that value, rather than the dollars that can be squeezed from it.
Serious Eats has to structure its reviews differently to avoid offending advertisers. It insists that its product recommendations are independent of outside influence, but it avoids discussing its non-recommendations, which makes some articles much less valuable to the reader. That's probably the least bad way for advertising to influence reviews, but it's unfortunate even so.
As long as they don't change their format I'm ok with this. They seem to go to a great deal of trouble to discuss all the possible options, and criteria they used to write their recommendations. That allows me to judge for myself to a degree which I really like. Several times I have not bought their recommendation and have gone with something else because I felt like I was more informed about what I was looking for from reading their article, which is still good in my book.
Except for an extremely minor purchase (can opener, never again oxo), I've been extremely happy with the recommendations from Wirecutter/Sweethome. Even if you don't end up buying the recommended item (or anything related), you get very detailed article about the pros/cons, manufacturing decisions, etc of a particular product and can apply those in your other searches.
For me it's simply the "I don't really want to think about this, but don't want to buy something bad" factor. I don't really care enough about TV to spend hours researching it, but I can probably rely on The Wirecutter to make sure I don't buy a POS. I might spend much more time researching a phone, on the other hand, and don't look at it too much.
There's a lot of value in that offering, because there's a huge gap between "enthusiasts reviews" (Anandtech, for example) and "consumer" (Consumer Reports). One is done by enthusiasts for enthusiasts and the other is done by consumers for consumers. The Wirecutter seems to provide "by enthusiasts for consumers".
I've only recently started using them. I bought a bluetooth headset and gaming headphones from their recommendations, and I consider these two to be great purchases, with quality/cost ratio much better than the cheap stuff I used to buy before.
Let me guess. The one that makes a non-sharp cut that requires the strength of a bodybuilder and doesn't work half the time?
But, yes, they seem to do a good job overall. Honestly, for a lot of things these days, all you want is a succinct recommendation for something decent while understanding the basis of the recommendation.
I also love the organization and writing style. I read reviews for things I'm not even remotely in the market for (what is an immersion blender?) simply for the enjoyment. Another great review site with a similar style is outdoorgearlab.com.
OMG, I can't believe it. The current design is extremely modern/cool but the old one is so geeky, I loved that too and I also discovered an interesting website I didn't know... Although as a European, I'm probably cut off from many of the most interesting products (e.g. standing desks).
Extremely smart purchase by the Grey Lady, if you ask me. And a good deal for the price. Feeds naturally into their slick online presence, adds content in very popular topic areas—areas that people with disposable income like to read about.
Love both sites. Fear the worst. Hope I'm wrong. They've influenced many purchasing-decisions. Happy with 95% of 'em.
PS Wirecutter/sweethome replaced consumersearch.com for me. ConsumerSearch summarized meta-analysis of reviews. After they were sold to about.com (NYT) it became 'stale' so I stopped using them. Just checked, it's still a decent site.
Does anyone know a way to see an overview of past wirecutter recommendations for each segment? I'd like to know which used/refurbished products could be the best option.
I've used The Wirecutter and the Sweethome to guide most of the major home purchases I've made over the past 3 years. So far, their advice has been spot on.
Is this just a default assumption that the NYT is going to ruin it? I'm actually not totally sure about comparable situations, but Engadget seems to have done ok after being acquired.
They were completely inept stewards of FiveThirtyEight, who do some of the most obviously helpful, objective, uncontroversial work you could possibly do in politics.
The NYT also has no idea how to deal with obvious digital journalism issues like how to flag when major substantive edits have been made to a piece after publication. It's a dinosaur of an organization, trying some new things but fundamentally out of touch with the modern world.
I do not think they are trying new things because they want change their core business. They have a strong subscriber base, which is growing, and a huge audience. They have a strong brand that is recognizable worldwide For example, they have close a deal with a Brazilian Tv network to deliver video and other exclusive contents that they produce.
Probably wanna have more ways to monetize from this base investing in digital plataform like Wirecutter.
Wow, I'm assuming that the creators might not leave with fuck-you-money, but assuming they were relatively profitable or at least break-even, that seems like a great exit for a small-scale-content-company in today's environment.
Wirecutter, like Macrumor's buyers guide, have my admiration for building a vital content service out of a pretty simple idea. Gives hope that content-creators don't have to go the viral-spam-crap route to be a success. Or, at least worthwhile.
This was just about the only site I trusted to be as critical of goods and services as I am. Not really sure where all those BS 5-star reviews come from on Amazon but these guys were sufficiently critical and it made for good content.
Hope being bought doesn't screw the quality, but if it does seems like a good business model for someone else to fire up. "We only give As to people who deserve As..."
I like the idea for the site and I like the actual site too, but I find it somewhat frustrating how often their recommendations are no longer available for purchase, or their articles say "hang on, this will be updated soon!" and you never know when "soon" is.
Just had this problem last week with the sweet home. I ended up being from a sporting goods store instead of Amazon, but I pretty much knew there was going to be some rust from the long storage time of the discontinued product. It turned out to be only a minor issue.
It's a little frustrating how really I can look at a website or product line and reliably make a judgment like "they made a good product in gen 1/2, but now they're in the gen 3/4 cash out phase where they cut costs and make huge margins on the product before their reputation catches up with the new cost-cutting." It shows how often I see it.
My wife and I are missing some significant things in our apartment, but I intend to keep dragging my feet so I can acquire high-quality things as I get the time to research and the money to buy them. Disposable crap isn't worth my time.
Then again, maybe all the mid-30-something's here are laughing at me right now because I'm just doing what everyone does once they mature and become experienced.
On the other hand, a media company that relies on advertising for a significant chunk of its revenue naturally seems like it will have a conflict of interest between its advertisers and the products it may be reviewing.
Anyways, congrats to Brian Lam and co., but I'm curious how this would benefit the Times in the long run.