I've been disclosing for several years now when CAD vendors compensate me for travelling to their marketing events or for providing me with hardware. I'm pleased to see that a number of other bloggers do the same.
(Software doesn't count, because it is easily available to everyone through 30-day trials, including to reviewers.)
Oracle tried to get Google into trouble by revealing the search company was paying bloggers to report unfavorably on the database company and its law suit against Google. Google said Oracle was doing the same. The judge was concerned the paid-for writing may have negatively affected the court case, and asked for lists of names of compensated bloggers. (Today the judge said he would "take no further action regarding the subject of payments by the litigants to commentators and journalists.")
A similar situation occurred some years ago when Autodesk sued Solidworks over orange rectangles in its marketing that were colored orange and were made of rectangles. Solidworks sponsored (the polite term for paid) a CAD journalist to sit in the courtroom and report. It was a useful service for all, but the one thing the journalist didn't report was his financial arrangement; th news came out later.
Blogger Matt Lombard at one time insisted that bloggers like me are tainted for taking money from ads. His blog now runs ads. When advertising comes from a variety of sources (not just one vendor all the time), then there isn't the concern, especially when ads come from ad servers whose content over which the blogger has no control, like Google AdSense; in my case, I use the Opera browser's Block feature so that I can't see which ads run on this blog.
So, some bloggers still do their work for free; others sometimes get compensated through ads, free hardware, and travel refunds; and the rest are known employees of CAD vendors.
With many of us bloggers being open about sources of conflict income, it is democratic of CAD vendors to balance the scale by reporting their compensation to non-employee bloggers and magazine writers.
(Software doesn't count, because it is easily available to everyone through 30-day trials, including to reviewers.)
Oracle tried to get Google into trouble by revealing the search company was paying bloggers to report unfavorably on the database company and its law suit against Google. Google said Oracle was doing the same. The judge was concerned the paid-for writing may have negatively affected the court case, and asked for lists of names of compensated bloggers. (Today the judge said he would "take no further action regarding the subject of payments by the litigants to commentators and journalists.")
A similar situation occurred some years ago when Autodesk sued Solidworks over orange rectangles in its marketing that were colored orange and were made of rectangles. Solidworks sponsored (the polite term for paid) a CAD journalist to sit in the courtroom and report. It was a useful service for all, but the one thing the journalist didn't report was his financial arrangement; th news came out later.
Blogger Matt Lombard at one time insisted that bloggers like me are tainted for taking money from ads. His blog now runs ads. When advertising comes from a variety of sources (not just one vendor all the time), then there isn't the concern, especially when ads come from ad servers whose content over which the blogger has no control, like Google AdSense; in my case, I use the Opera browser's Block feature so that I can't see which ads run on this blog.
So, some bloggers still do their work for free; others sometimes get compensated through ads, free hardware, and travel refunds; and the rest are known employees of CAD vendors.
With many of us bloggers being open about sources of conflict income, it is democratic of CAD vendors to balance the scale by reporting their compensation to non-employee bloggers and magazine writers.
"Blogger Matt Lombard at one time insisted that bloggers like me are tainted for taking money from ads. His blog now runs ads."
Matt Lombard insisted for many years that direct modeling weren't needed. Now that Siemens pays Matt Lombard to write a blog for Solid Edge his position has changed on direct modeling tools.
I don't take ads on my CADCAM Technology Leaders blog and I will never take them.
Jon Banquer
http://cadcamtechnologyleaders.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Jon Banquer | Sep 11, 2012 at 08:23 AM
"pertaining to or characterized by the principle of political or social equality for all: democratic treatment."
"it is democratic of CAD vendors....."
;-) Since when have CAD vendors been managed on democratically?
Posted by: R. Paul Waddington | Sep 11, 2012 at 03:28 PM
My use of the word "democratic" was deliberate, as some CAD vendors like using the word to describe themselves or their services.
Posted by: Ralph Grabowski | Sep 11, 2012 at 03:49 PM
Ralph,
Everything we read needs to be taken with a grain of salt and a thorough background check as to the context/motivation of the blogger. Recently there was a great article on PandoDaily that sums up the issue nicely!
http://pandodaily.com/2012/09/03/dont-want-to-be-mistaken-for-a-prostitute-dont-get-into-samsungs-creepy-limo/
Greg
Posted by: Greg | Sep 11, 2012 at 05:28 PM
Ralph maybe you should turn on the ads in your browser. Whenever you mention Russia the ads show Russian ladies offering dating services. :-)
Posted by: Kevin Quigley | Sep 12, 2012 at 12:11 AM
Those ads are more relevant than the ones I get on my (English) Facebook page: all ads are always in German, and sometimes the login screen in in German, too. Judging from the content of the ads, most people in Germany are single.
Posted by: Ralph Grabowski | Sep 12, 2012 at 07:41 AM