How The Nifty Tech Blog Works

Recently, a reader was asking me about the kind of compensation that I receive for doing The Nifty Tech Blog.  He seemed to think that companies were paying me to review their products, or were providing their products to me free of charge in exchange for a review.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  So I thought I'd add this article to the feed to clear up these kinds of misconceptions.

I receive no funds, goods, or services for producing The Nifty Tech Blog.

In fact, I'm losing money on the proposition.

Now, some of you will note that there are ads on the sidebars and on the bottom of the page.  These are an attempt to defray some of the costs of running The Nifty Tech Blog so that I can keep it running longer.  Unfortunately neither Google nor Amazon ads pay off until there have been sufficient click throughs and purchases to hit a minimum amount of activity, and I'm no where near that level of activity yet.

But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.  Let me go back to the beginning and explain how things work at The Nifty Tech Blog.

Currently, The Nifty Tech Blog has a staff of one.  That's me.  When I'm not working at my day job, and keeping my wife happy, I put what time I can into researching, writing, editing, and producing the Blog.  I have been lucky enough to have some friends step up and volunteer their help from time to time.  Most notably, Odin1Eye who stepped up and did a guest review a few weeks back.  And hopefully in the next month or so I'll be welcoming a new staffer as a PC expert bringing his expertise and insight from the Windows side of the world.  And nobody gets paid anything.

Each of the products reviewed in The Nifty Tech Blog are products that I, or my guest reviewers, have had personal experience with.  These products are either free, or are things that we have paid for with our own money.  And by recommending them, we're saying that we would pay for them again.  If a product isn't good enough to buy all over again, it doesn't make the Blog.  What we're trying to provide is a view into the best products available on the market.

And towards that end, The Nifty Tech Blog is completely community supported.  I rely on you the reader to suggest new products to review, in addition to the research I do on my own.  No one receives any compensation or considerations from the manufacturers.  Now there are some products out there that I want to review, but I just don't have the funds necessary to buy a review model of a product.  And there is no way I can afford to buy review models of every new product out there!  Eventually, I expect that I will have to resort to asking manufacturers to send me review models to examine.  If that happens, I will be sure to state right up front that the review is based on a piece of equipment loaned by the manufacturer.

The domain registry and hosting costs are paid by me.  And all of the layout and web work is done by me.

So, if this is a losing proposition, why do I keep doing it?

Well, for me, The Nifty Tech Blog is a labor of love.  There is so much cool stuff out there, I want to let people know about it.  And I want your help to find it so that I can play with it!  Would I like it if I could make a profit?  Yeah.  But I'll never get rich writing a blog.  If I could break even, that would be enough.  But for now, I'll keep going as long as I can.

If you'd like to help support The Nifty Tech Blog, leave a comment.  Send me e-mail.  Tell a friend about the Blog.  Suggest a new product to review.  If you really want to support the Blog financially, then check out the ads, or buy something from the store.  Or just keep coming back and reading.  That's what it is here for, after all.  For you to read.