Why The Product Photos Are The Way They Are

When I started The Impulsive Buy, I made the decision to not have any background behind the product photos. I came to this decision because I wanted people coming from Google (or any search engine) to think they were coming to a professional, safe site, which I hoped disarmed them. With them thinking TIB was a wholesome website, I hoped they would be horrified when I started describing how phallic a product was or wrote boobies several times in a paragraph.

Sure, it’s gotten me a few angry emails over the nearly seven years The Impulsive Buy has been in existence, but those were just proof that my decision to knock out the background in photos was the right one.

Another Reply I Sent To A PR Person

I think I’m going to make this the template for all my PR replies to folks who want to send us a product to review:

Hi (name removed to protect the innocent),

Here at The Impulsive Buy we no longer accept free products for review because, to be perfectly honest, every time we’ve done so in the past, it felt like a part of our soul was ripped away from us and lost forever. The soul of The Impulsive Buy is being completely honest about a product and describing it like no other blog would. For example, off of the top of my head I might be able to logically compare Crystal Light Pure with pure cocaine. Now this doesn’t bother me, but it may bother you and I’m 99.9 percent sure it would bother Crystal Light. So by not accepting free products we’re not only letting us maintain whatever soul we have left, but we’re also protecting the nice PR folks who might get fired for mistakenly sending a blog like ours free products to review.

Thanks for the email.

Marvo
Editor-in-Chief
The Impulsive Buy

New Projects Ahead (And One Old Project Revisited)

Late last year, I started Grand Store Brand Land, a store brand review blog. What influenced me to start this blog was the amount of store brand products available and the quality of them. Growing up, I thought store brands were cheap knockoffs of popular products, and they were. However, today is a much different story. A lot of the Archer Farms stuff at Target is damn tasty, and the Safeway store brands are good as well. However, after four reviews in two weeks, I stopped posting. I think I stopped because I wasn’t sure about the voice of the blog. Should it be like The Impulsive Buy or should it be different? I pondered about this for a week, then a week turned into a month, a month turned into two months, and here we are today.

Last week, I posted a new review at Grand Store Brand Land, because I don’t want it to die, I think it’s a decent idea for a blog, and I buy a lot of Archer Farms products. Although, I’ll probably just review Target and Safeway stuff, since I mainly shop at those two stores. But if any of you want to contribute a review (for free), please feel free to contact me. As for the voice of the blog, I realize I shouldn’t focus on that, and I should just write.

As for the new projects, I started with a friend (Russel at Two Beer Queers) a parody online money making blog called Awesome Online Money Making Blog. We basically try to make fun of the thousands of slimy blogs that teach people how to make money online. The idea came to me by reading the Problogger blog. If you’ve never visited Problogger, it’s run by a guy in Australia who runs a number of blogs and makes a living from them. Problogger contains hints and tips to earn money online, and at first they were helpful, like where to place your Google Adsense ads, but then the posts slowly turned into posts about stuff he wanted to sell to his readers, like ebooks and online money making programs. And then there were guest posts from other online money making bloggers who were also selling ebooks and their own money making programs. At this point I thought it was absurd and decided to make fun of them in blog form.

Another new project I’m working on is a frozen food review blog called Freezer Aisle Files. I’m doing it because I miss the microwaveable meal review blog Heat Eat Review. It was a great source for microwaveable meals. Like Grand Store Brand Land and Awesome Online Money Making Blog, I hope to post something weekly. Also, if you’re interested in contributing frozen food reviews (again, for free), please let me know.

I also have an idea for a beverage review blog (and I even have a good name for it), but I’ll put that on hold until later.

Finally, I’m working on an ebook. No, it’s not about how to make money on the internet. It’s also not a book of reviews. I don’t want to go into specifics, but all I’m going to say is that it’s a how-to book. It’s going to involve a lot of research, so I hope to have a draft by the end of this year. Once I have a final draft of it, I’ll probably put it up for sale on the Amazon Kindle store.

Help Me Expand This List Of Review Blogs

For the Week in Reviews (which is currently Day in Reviews, we’ll see how long that lasts), I go through every single one of the review blogs below to pick out reviews. I’d like to expand this list and I’d like your help. If you know of any product review blogs I should follow, please let me know in the comments or on Twitter or TIB’s Facebook page.

Thank you.

Marvo
The Big Cheese
www.theimpulsivebuy.com

Food Blogs

http://www.grubgrade.com/

http://www.foodstufffinds.co.uk/

http://gigi-reviews.blogspot.com/

http://junkfoodbetty.com/

http://phoood.com/

http://www.yumyucky.com/

http://www.iateapie.net/

http://davescupboard.blogspot.com/

http://wouldibuyitagain.com/

http://foodette-reviews.blogspot.com/

http://approacheszero.wordpress.com/

http://animmovablefeast.blogspot.com/

http://probablyedible.wordpress.com/

http://www.rodzillareviews.com/

http://foodjunk.wordpress.com/

http://www.munchiesblog.com/

http://dihts.com/

http://www.epicportions.com/

http://www.onsecondscoop.com/

http://www.freezerburns.com/wordpress/

http://ebidebby.blogspot.com/

http://japanesesnackreviews.blogspot.com/

http://quirkspace.com/jsfr/

http://secondratesnacks.com/

http://fastfoodreviewed.com/

http://brandeating.blogspot.com/

http://www.bloglander.com/cheapeats/

http://foodirl.com/

Candy Blogs

http://obsessivesweets.blogspot.com/

http://www.candyyumyum.com/

http://www.chocablog.com/

http://www.gumalert.com/

http://exquisitecandy.wordpress.com/

http://www.sugarpressure.com/

http://www.candygurus.com/

http://www.chocolatereviews.co.uk/

http://zomgcandy.com/

http://www.thecandyenthusiast.com/

http://www.chocolatemission.net/

http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/

http://jenkenskitkatblog.blogspot.com/

http://tastyjapan.blogspot.com/

http://candyaddict.com/blog/index.php

Beverage Blogs

http://www.caffeineaholic.net/

http://www.caffeinecritic.com/

http://cannedreviews.blogspot.com/

http://www.belchingmonkey.com/

http://www.bevreview.com/

http://www.thesodajerks.net/

http://www.possessedbycaffeine.com/

http://www.edjunkie.com/index.html

http://www.screamingenergy.com/

http://energyfiend.com/

http://www.teaviews.com/

http://nrgdrinkeuphoria.blogspot.com/

http://www.bandddesigns.com/energy/

http://energyheaven.blogspot.com/

http://addicted2energy.blogspot.com/

http://thirstrate.wordpress.com/

http://sodagiant.com/

http://www.drinkwhat.com/

http://caffeineking101.blogspot.com/

http://whatidrinkatwork.blogspot.com

http://www.twobeerqueers.com/

Others

http://www.we-rate-stuff.com/

http://everyview.com/

http://www.review-spew.com/

http://officesupplygeek.com/

http://thesurfingpizza.com/

Goal for 2011: Post 175 Reviews

Last year, TIB posted 130 reviews. I didn’t set a goal for the number of reviews posted in 2010, but I’m somewhat disappointed by the number because it’s significantly lower than the previous two years. There were also less posts overall in 2010 than there were in 2009. In 2010, there were 237 posts. In 2009, there were 303. The lower number of posts definitely contributed to the first drop in traffic TIB has ever had. But I expect 2011 to be a good year for TIB, now that it has a merry band of excellent writers.

I’ve never set goals for TIB, but this year I’m going to start. My goals this year for TIB are to post 175 reviews and 350 posts overall.