I've done a few video blog posts before using the video function of my digital camera, but I took delivery today of my new video camera - the Sony DCR-SR32. I went for a hard disk camcorder because 30gb of storage is plenty and I can't be bothered to mess about with tapes or discs. So I'm looking forward to creating lots more video content with my new camera.

How do you get hold of kit to review?

Someone emailed me recently in response to my post about a video review I had done to ask how I got hold of the stuff to review. It's pretty simple to be honest, but here's how:

Once I've decided what I want to review, I go to the manufacturer's website and look for contact details of their press office or agency - often it will be in a third party PR agency.

Once I've identified who I need to contact, I write an email explaining why my site is a great fit and how it will benefit them to get the exposure. I have created a "media pack" pdf for one site with details of search engine positions and traffic. I put myself in their shoes and think what boxes do they want ticked before they agree to send an expensive piece of kit. I only bother writing for a site that I am proud of and I genuinely think can benefit them or their client.

They will either agree or not respond, or respond but say they don't have anything at the moment - I think they usually have a pool of loan equipment. If they respond positively, they will usually send a loan form which needs to be completed and guarantees you will look after the item and return in a set time.

I did review a low value item once (under £20) and there was no mention of returning it. And there was a gadget correspondent in a neighbouring office, when I didn't work from home, and he had a mountain of freebies he had reviewed and kept. But a freebie is a bonus and I always go into it expecting to return an item and I do so on time. After reviewing and returning an item, I follow up with an email providing a link to the review.

And that's pretty much all there is to it! But if you have any other tips, feel free to use the comments section.

Labels: reviews, video

I thought I would write a follow up review of ITV1's Fortune, despite nearly losing the will to live at about half way through. I'm not sure if it was the hideous "contestants" or the awful, inconsistent approach from the panellists but this was terrible. But also terribly compelling and I managed to keep watching.

I suppose the standout entrant was the little boy who had been "diagnosed" as "exceptionally bright". I had a natural empathy with him because I've long suspected I suffer from extreme intelligentsia but it hasn't been spotted by the medical profession yet. He wanted 38k to pay for him to goto college. But it turned out he had just written his first book about a young wizard with OCD - prompting Lord Archer to make the funny observation, "It's often to best to start out autobiographical" - which actually sounds like a hilarous premise for a book. Think Harry Potter-cum-Monk. So if the book is any good, publish it and use the money to pay for the college. And if it's no good, then it wasn't really much of an achievement so stop bragging about it!

Also, the more I hear them not mention how wealthy Kanye King is, whilst specifically telling us how much the others are worth, the more curious it makes me about how much she is worth and what qualifies her for a position on the "fortune five".

So more oddball entertainment but nothing much learned. What looks more promising is the forthcoming Tycoon, which was trailed during one of the ad breaks starring another escapee from the Dragons' Den, Peter Jones, where he promises to invest in great new business ideas with his own money.

Labels: fortune, itv1, reviews

I blogged over the last couple of days about how I had grabbed top position for a great search term on one of my websites.

There's some immediate, obvious advantages to this such as more traffic. But another benefit which is now becoming clear is that it opens doors for you in other ways.

For a while now I had been wanting to start reviewing gadgets related to the subject matter of this specific site and emailed a couple of companies asking for evaluation kit but the reaction was lukewarm generally. With my current ranking, I felt much more confident about approaching the PR firm of another manufacturer yesterday and telling them I have the top ranked site on Google (for the moment!) for a related term and can they send me stuff to review.

Bright and early this morning, the postman brought me a parcel from the PR company with the requested kit inside.

Now, it might be that this particularly company would have sent me the item to review before, but I can't help but think that the position my site is at in Google demonstrated that mine was a site worth doing business with and worth sending review to, which in turn let me create more original content and therefore continue to improve the site and make it the genuinely useful site I hanker after.

Labels: marketing, reviews, search engines, web promotion