<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class="">On 5 Nov 2019, at 12:31, Tom Henderson via Ipg-smz <<a href="mailto:ipg-smz@netpress.org" class="">ipg-smz@netpress.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">Amazingly, I may have the largest independent test lab, enterprise grade, left. Who's left doing enterprise-grade product reviews?<br class=""></div></blockquote></div><div class=""><br class=""></div>Quite right. </div><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Theresa W. Carey recently posted some jobs at DotDash that looked good, including one for freelance tech reviewers -- a job I did 20+ years ago. They wanted 1,000-2,500 word reviews, tested on multiple devices, with "crisp, well-lit photos of review products in clean settings". Exactly the sort of thing a lab would do.</div><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Well, fine -- I can do all that. Then I realized that the chances of them paying more than $250/review are nearly zero.</div><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">They'll get someone, of course. Probably someone just out of school, starting up a ladder to a point they don't yet realize no longer exists. Or a hobbyist, part-timer, or retiree. Doesn't matter, because those 2,000 words be gone in a few days.<br class=""><div class="">
<div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Menlo; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">---<br class="">Tom Geller * Writer & Video/journalist * <a href="http://tomgeller.com" class="">http://tomgeller.com</a><br class=""> Rotterdam, The Netherlands, +31 (0)6 87071468<br class=""> Oberlin, Ohio * +1-415-317-1805</div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Menlo; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Menlo; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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<div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 5 Nov 2019, at 12:31, Tom Henderson via Ipg-smz <<a href="mailto:ipg-smz@netpress.org" class="">ipg-smz@netpress.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">Amazingly, I may have the largest independent test lab, enterprise grade, left. Who's left doing enterprise-grade product reviews?<br class=""><br class="">I wonder if this is the emergence of the tech oligarchy.<br class=""><br class="">It's my humble opinion that I have but a fraction of what might be realistic: 500 Xeon cores, 40K GPU cores, 100TB NVMe SAN, 10GB with 100GB core router. This is crazy. There should be ten dozen of me.<br class=""><br class="">This is how the media becomes controlled: asphyxiation.<br class=""><br class="">Imagine: I'm using this stuff to make cryptocurrency because enterprise-grade product journalism has been starved off-- choked.<br class=""><br class="">Tom<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">On 11/5/19 2:20 AM, Tom Geller via Ipg-smz wrote:<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On 5 Nov 2019, at 08:01, Howard M. Cohen via Ipg-smz<<a href="mailto:ipg-smz@netpress.org" class="">ipg-smz@netpress.org</a>> wrote:<br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">many of us have changed who we write for<br class=""></blockquote>If you write for a vendor, are you a "journalist"? Open for debate, but I'd say "no", and my comments here reflect that. Certainly the consensus answer was "no" twenty years ago.<br class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">Ours is a vibrant and vital community.<br class=""></blockquote>Arguing against that:<br class="">* Far lower freelance rates, down over 75% from the 1990s.<br class="">* Far fewer staff positions, probably down over 90%.<br class="">* Far less care and oversight (copyeditors, managing editors, etc.). Again I'd say 75-90% shrinkage.<br class="">* Far fewer publications, so less mobility.<br class="">* For less exposure from each piece (shorter pieces, in the public eye for only days or hours).<br class="">* Far less publication revenue from our work, causing all the above.<br class=""><br class="">I'll grant that it's a "vibrant and vital community" -- of part-timers, hobbyists, and retired folks looking to stay busy (*ahem*). But for only a tiny number is it a profession nowadays.<br class=""><br class="">It's nice work if you can get it. And if you get it, won't you tell me how?<br class=""><br class="">---<br class="">Tom Geller * Writer & Video/journalist *<a href="http://tomgeller.com" class="">http://tomgeller.com</a><br class=""> Rotterdam, The Netherlands, +31 (0)6 87071468<br class=""> Oberlin, Ohio * +1-415-317-1805<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""></blockquote>-- <br class="">Tom Henderson<br class="">ExtremeLabs, Inc.<br class="">+1 317 250 4646<br class="">Twitter: @extremelabs<br class="">Skype: extremelabsinc<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">-- <br class="">Ipg-smz mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:Ipg-smz@netpress.org" class="">Ipg-smz@netpress.org</a><br class="">http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>