Cheers, Joey
Here's the email, hope the links still work:
- Hi everyone,
It’s been six months since I sent out a note from BLISTER Headquarters, and I wanted to touch base.
I hope that you’ve been enjoying some of the reviews and reports from our trip to Las Leñas. Over the coming weeks, we’ll continue to roll out reviews on some of the skis, boots, outerwear, and goggles that we were testing in Argentina.
We’ve also been making lists and ranking the skis and snowboards that we need to get on this coming season. As always, we’d like to hear what skis, boards, jackets, packs, etc. you are most interested in. We’ve got our own ideas, but if there is enough reader interest in certain products, we’ll bump certain items to the top of the list and do our best to make it happen.
I also want to ask a favor: many of you have written to express your support for what we’re doing and have said that you think we’re on the right track.
We’ve got some exceptionally good reviewers who work extremely hard on these reviews, and there is often a lot of back and forth trying to make sure that our claims are as clear as possible. The whole process is very time and energy intensive.
You also probably know by now that we do not accept any money from the manufacturers we review, and this is one of the primary reasons that our reviews don’t read like all the other review sites and magazines out there.
So what we do is very intensive, it isn’t cheap, and we have an operating budget that we need to meet. It’s hard, and we have refused to take the easy money. But I will shut down BLISTER before I start accepting money from the companies we review in exchange for writing short, glowing fluff reviews about anything and everything they come out with.
We also don’t want to start littering the site with a bunch of stupid advertisements for online dating sites or laundry detergent companies, because that’s lame. I have already turned down a number of such requests, and I want to continue to do so.
We are, however, interested in partnering with some top shelf companies that don’t make any of the gear we review, but who are interested in our work and could help underwrite it. But for that to happen, it is critical that we continue to grow our traffic.
So if you’re against fake reviews and want to see this resource continue, it’s crucial that everyone you know who would be interested in this sort of unbiased information knows about BLISTER.
There are a few specific things you could do:
(1) Send an email—or forward this email with a brief note—to those you know who might be interested in a site that provides (hopefully) smart and always honest information about ski, board, bike, and climbing gear.
We think this sort of grassroots push is the most genuine way of lending your support, spreading the word, and growing this community.
(2) Social media matters these days, alot. Plus, Facebook or Twitter are good places to make review requests and find out what skis or bikes are currently in the process of being reviewed.
So if you haven’t already, please click the link below join us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BlisterGearReview
And if you’re on Twitter, you can find us here.
http://twitter.com/#!/blisterreview
(3) At the end of most of our reviews is a “Where To Buy” link. If you don’t have a local shop that you get your gear from (which we encourage), we’d appreciate it if you would click through from our site and purchase whatever it is you’re interested in from our partner, backcountry.com. We have an affiliate relationship with backcountry, and are huge fans of their best in the business ‘no questions asked, return it at any time’ return policy.
Also, in the case of indie companies who are not carried by backcountry.com, we provide Buy It Now links to their own websites, and we don’t charge the company anything for that referral. It’s a great way to direct traffic to good indie products, and hopefully help small, good companies continue to grow in a highly competitive and difficult marketplace.
(4) Finally, for those who’ve asked, we do have available for sale a limited number of BLISTER t-shirts (long and short sleeve), some large and small die cut stickers (these are sweet), and my personal favorite: BLISTER coffee mugs (I don’t have time to sleep much). We’ll have a little store up on the website in the next week or two, and I’ll send a quick note to let you know when it is live. But If you don’t want to wait, just send me an email and we’ll get you taken care of.
It’s been six months since I sent out a note from BLISTER Headquarters, and I wanted to touch base.
I hope that you’ve been enjoying some of the reviews and reports from our trip to Las Leñas. Over the coming weeks, we’ll continue to roll out reviews on some of the skis, boots, outerwear, and goggles that we were testing in Argentina.
We’ve also been making lists and ranking the skis and snowboards that we need to get on this coming season. As always, we’d like to hear what skis, boards, jackets, packs, etc. you are most interested in. We’ve got our own ideas, but if there is enough reader interest in certain products, we’ll bump certain items to the top of the list and do our best to make it happen.
I also want to ask a favor: many of you have written to express your support for what we’re doing and have said that you think we’re on the right track.
We’ve got some exceptionally good reviewers who work extremely hard on these reviews, and there is often a lot of back and forth trying to make sure that our claims are as clear as possible. The whole process is very time and energy intensive.
You also probably know by now that we do not accept any money from the manufacturers we review, and this is one of the primary reasons that our reviews don’t read like all the other review sites and magazines out there.
So what we do is very intensive, it isn’t cheap, and we have an operating budget that we need to meet. It’s hard, and we have refused to take the easy money. But I will shut down BLISTER before I start accepting money from the companies we review in exchange for writing short, glowing fluff reviews about anything and everything they come out with.
We also don’t want to start littering the site with a bunch of stupid advertisements for online dating sites or laundry detergent companies, because that’s lame. I have already turned down a number of such requests, and I want to continue to do so.
We are, however, interested in partnering with some top shelf companies that don’t make any of the gear we review, but who are interested in our work and could help underwrite it. But for that to happen, it is critical that we continue to grow our traffic.
So if you’re against fake reviews and want to see this resource continue, it’s crucial that everyone you know who would be interested in this sort of unbiased information knows about BLISTER.
There are a few specific things you could do:
(1) Send an email—or forward this email with a brief note—to those you know who might be interested in a site that provides (hopefully) smart and always honest information about ski, board, bike, and climbing gear.
We think this sort of grassroots push is the most genuine way of lending your support, spreading the word, and growing this community.
(2) Social media matters these days, alot. Plus, Facebook or Twitter are good places to make review requests and find out what skis or bikes are currently in the process of being reviewed.
So if you haven’t already, please click the link below join us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BlisterGearReview
And if you’re on Twitter, you can find us here.
http://twitter.com/#!/blisterreview
(3) At the end of most of our reviews is a “Where To Buy” link. If you don’t have a local shop that you get your gear from (which we encourage), we’d appreciate it if you would click through from our site and purchase whatever it is you’re interested in from our partner, backcountry.com. We have an affiliate relationship with backcountry, and are huge fans of their best in the business ‘no questions asked, return it at any time’ return policy.
Also, in the case of indie companies who are not carried by backcountry.com, we provide Buy It Now links to their own websites, and we don’t charge the company anything for that referral. It’s a great way to direct traffic to good indie products, and hopefully help small, good companies continue to grow in a highly competitive and difficult marketplace.
(4) Finally, for those who’ve asked, we do have available for sale a limited number of BLISTER t-shirts (long and short sleeve), some large and small die cut stickers (these are sweet), and my personal favorite: BLISTER coffee mugs (I don’t have time to sleep much). We’ll have a little store up on the website in the next week or two, and I’ll send a quick note to let you know when it is live. But If you don’t want to wait, just send me an email and we’ll get you taken care of.
Thanks again for all of your kind words, for reading and contributing comments to the site, and for supporting this project. We are glad that you’re part of the community, and we look forward to keeping it going and growing with your help.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please drop me a line.
Jonathan Ellsworth
Founder, Editor-in-Chief
Blister Gear Review
www.blistergearreview.com
www.facebook.com/BlisterGearReview
http://twitter.com/#!/blisterreview
If you have any questions or suggestions, please drop me a line.
Jonathan Ellsworth
Founder, Editor-in-Chief
Blister Gear Review
www.blistergearreview.com
www.facebook.com/BlisterGearReview
http://twitter.com/#!/blisterreview
