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Software Defined Radio:
Burt Fishers (K1OIK) Review of FlexRadio 5000

We already wrote one article about Burt Fisher K1OIK.  This posting is just to draw your attention to Burts Review of a software defined radio – The FlexRadio 5000.

Folks reading reviews QST should be aware that their business model depends heavily on revenue from advertising.  Theoretically, it would not be to their benefit to write less then positive reviews of products – even if it was the truth of the matter.  For example, QST gets advertising dollars from FlexRadio.  If QST wrote a less than favorable review of the Flex Radio products then Flex may pull advertising revenue. 

This is the perennial collision of ethics and business.  Consume Reports maintains objectivity of product reviews by simply making the potential conflict of and advertising dollars vs objective reviews go away by accepting no advertising.  When was the last time you read in any QST review that any produt was not a wise purchase compared to other products on the market in the same category?

This is all to say, product review from real hams with no revenue at stake makes them more objective.  This is not to say they do a high quality or comprehensive review – its just to say that they don’t have a devil over one shoulder wispering revenue impact when they are doing product reviews.

In any case, here is a link to burts video review of the Flex Radio 5000.  This is the first in a series for the Flex Radio.  We suggest you subscribe to Burts YouTube channel

Burts YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/burt2481

Review of the Flex 5000A SDR Radio

Resources

Check out the WordPress auto generated related links about Ethics in Jouralism

Soon after that, Eidos threw a $%$#@  and withdrew their advertising from Gamespot. The rumur mill began grinding. The blogs began buzzing. Rumor has it that Gamespot lost hundred of thousands of dollars of future advertising revenue over that one bad review. Rumor has it that Jeff was sacrificed to the almighty dollar. Nobody knows how much of it is true, but the whole thing even made the front page of Slashdot. That’s about as big as a limited interest story like this gets.

Now, to be fair, nobody knows for sure that Jeff was fired for his review. I mean, it could be a coincidence that a respected, high profile, long-tenured writer was put out to pasture immediately after writing a bad review of a game that was responsible for tons of advertising revenue for his website. Maybe they were planning on firing him all along and were just victims of almost impossibly bad timing.

Jeff: Instant celebrity, official status as the “straight-shooting journalist who can’t be bought and sold.” Practically guaranteed another high-profile writing job, perhaps for an organization that understands that reviews are only as good as the perceived integrity of the reviewer.

http://themcp.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/the-ethics-of-journalism-in-games/?referer=sphere_related_content/