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I used to think the same thing until I read a review for LED lightbulbs on one of their sister sites, The Sweethome [http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-led-li
by Are-Em_Star 12y ago
I used to think the same thing until I read a review for LED lightbulbs on one of their sister sites, The Sweethome [http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-led-lightbulb/ http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-led-lightbulb/]. The review in question sounds like an infomercial for Cree and DesigningwithLEDs.com. It definitely made me question how impartial The Wirecutter and it's sister sites really is.
- tptacek 12y agoI don't understand. What about this review sounds suspicious to you? They like a specific brand of LED bulb. Isn't that the whole point of the site?
- Are-Em_Star 12y agoIt's been a couple of months since I read it, but I remember that the tone just felt off to me. I think there's a couple of comments on the site that mention it sound like an infomercial. I think the frequent references to DesigningwithLEDs.com also put me off, kind of felt like the author was really trying to drive traffic to their own site.
- tptacek 12y agoThe author runs DesigningWithLEDs.com. Presumably, that's why they chose her to write this review. If Sweethome is happy with the cross-promotion (to another website, of course, not to a reviewed product), I'm not sure I see what the problem is for the reader.
- shiven 12y agoThe question is, as in security, trustworthiness. Trust and/but/then Verify you say? If I have to verify, what's the point of trusting, might as well read amazon reviews and do my own research via google, fb, twitter etc. For a completely new user, a site that even 'smells' of shenanigans is hard to trust. First impressions and all that. If a site invites guest writers, who then shill for their own site, in the main copy of their post, rather than, say, the footnote or sub-title, it starts smelling fishy pretty fast.