I just got an email today from Amazon offering me a spot in their vine program. Apparently they will send you free stuff every month (which would be welcome in this economy) and all you have to do in return is review it.
Which opens up some questions in my mind:
1. what happens if you hate something and your review reflects that? will you be pressured or punished over negative reviews? or dropped from the program for giving negative reviews? Amazon is, after all, in the business to sell stuff to people...
2. do you have any choices whatsoever over what they send you? or even the type of thing that they send you?
3. there is, of course, the ever present ethical question of people (whether on Amazon or in any sort of blog) reviewing something they were given for free - do they subconciously try really hard to see or emphasize the good in the generally bad as a sort of payback to the publisher/author/whatever for providing them with freebies? Subconcious expression of gratitude? Internal or external pressure to praise where there is little to nothing to praise?
4. what happens if you just do not have time in any given month to use/review the product/s they send you? (this might be a problem for me, as I do work full time and have two children)
Is anyone here an Amazon vine person? Do you like and recommend this program? What sorts of things have you been sent to review?
Maybe a few more. Just bought the latest the other day.
