This blog is not primarily financially driven, though making a few bucks here and there to offset our time and costs is a welcome thing.
The FTC requires that bloggers disclose whenever there could be hidden interests or unspoken biases when a blogger writes about a particular subject. Our readers are a smart and practical bunch, so you won’t be surprised by any of the following:
Affiliate links: If we recommend something and there is an affiliate program, we would be stupid not to avail ourselves of it. What that means is that if we recommend a book to you and include an Amazon link that you use to purchase, we will make a few cents off your purchase. Will we recommend tons of books and encourage you to buy in hopes of making a few bucks? Um, no. The same holds true of any other product we recommend. If we wouldn’t use it, we won’t be recommending it to you even if it would benefit us financially.
Advertisers/Sponsors: We don’t have any on the site right now, but we may in the future. If this happens, you’ll clearly see an ad in the sidebar to show it is an advertiser/sponsor. Heck, we’ll be so happy to have one we’ll probably write a blog post about it. How’s that for transparency?
Free lunches: Sometimes I’ll interview people for the blog. They may pick up the lunch check if we’re meeting in person. It is just as likely that I’ll pick up the lunch check. Just so you know, sometimes I do get a free lunch (though I also pay about half the time, so I guess it is true what they say about free lunches…).
Gifts: When I write about something that was given to me, I’ll let you know. I’ve actually been doing this all along (remember the Rosetta Stone Totale package I won from TechCrunch?)
In short, please know that we’re not trying to scam you and the FTC wants to make sure that you know that. So while we make a few dollars here and there on the blog, it is in an attempt to cover our costs, not provide fake endorsements for products we don’t believe in so we can become secretly wealthy through the blog. Besides, I’m sure you guys would see through something like that in a minute.
There, I’m glad we got that all straight.
