I've never heard of Amazon Vine before

[bran]

They get FREE new books and pre-releases, here. Makes me wish I'd bothered to do reviews, I think I've only done one or two in my entire Amazon history.

Anybody on here a member of Amazon Vine?

It won't be very many asked though.

I don't think so.

Not a member.

I think you'll find there's a few people around who would never buy an Amazon Vine recommended product simply because of the bribery bias introduced to the review process.

It's not just books btw

what what what!!! I need to get in on this!

I'm a Vine reviewer. It really isn't as exciting as it sounds, I promise!

They 'say' they will send you targetted newsletters based on your previous purchase history and reviews. What you get is an email twice a month with a load of stuff you don't particularly want or are able to use. So for example, I have a Mac, I have bought games, software and reference books for Macs. Every bit of software I ever get offered is for PCs.

Occasionally you get good stuff, I've had a really good digital camera, a £300 shaver that DH is currently 'testing' and a £400 Philips Lumea (which I can't use because I'm too fair skinned/light haired) but you're not allowed to give things away. It's a very mixed blessing.

Forgot to add, you can pick 2 items from your 'targetted' email and 2 the following week from the What's Left email. You have to review 75% of what you get.

Yes, I particularly loathe the cobblertastic positive reviews from people getting free stuff just to make up the numbers and get the next round of freebies. TRansaparent marketing pushes from certain manufacturers drive me nuts.

Bald bloke whose fictional completely real girlfriend tested Babyliss straighteners was the one that tipped me over the edge against Vine.

Rockbird - how on earth do they police you not giving this stuff away? I would have thought you would get the PC games and Ebay the darn things.

It is transparent obviously but from what I've seen and what I do myself, the reviews are pretty fair. There is absolutely no point in saying that a book is great if it's shite. There is a Vine community a bit like here and the vast majority of people take it very seriously and have gone so far as to report people who have admitted to flouting it.

Re: the bald bloke, as I said above, I got a shaver for DH. It doesn't mean I have a beard or that I'm making DH up.

They can't police you giving stuff away obviously, but you sign the agreement and, in theory, they can ask for items to be returned. It is madness, someone on here a few months back was desperate to try the Lumea but it was too expensive and I have a brand new one in the box and not enough of the right type of hair.

Rocky, I believe you about the DH certainly...

I suspect that as time moves on people will stop admitting any 'flouting', and just do it on the quiet.

It's just I have my doubts. As I'm not a member of the Vine community, I can't judge the reviewers properly, and I certainly wouldn't take them on trust. If it was a 'Rockbird' review on MN, I would however because there is far more to go on.

I'm a Vine reviewer. I've had loads of crap books, some good books, some terrible PC software, a few good kids' games and CDs.

My sister does it and gets loads of good stuff - lots of nice books for her kids and interesting books for herself, recently an expensive camera! I would love to do it but don't think the scheme is available in my country (since we don't have our own Amazon page and have to use Amazon Germany...)

As far as I know they are free to write negative reviews and the free products will still keep on coming. Don't think there is a correlation between good reviews and being offered more stuff, as they want reliable and helpful reviews!

I can understand some cynicism but am quite jealous of those invited to be Vine reviewers, particularly as I've seen some really quite badly written Vine reviews which don't tell me much that's useful.

I was invited in March this year.

Good - I've had some great things, including two boxes of Duplo Lego for the kids and some excellent books I really wanted to read, including one I'm reading now that I've been waiting for for ever. You don't have to say nice things about it, you won't get kicked out for negative reviews. The nonos are being caught ebaying the goodies, and I've no intention of doing that - there is one book I'm reading now I probably won't keep for ever but I won't try to sell it, and I'm not parting with anything else so far.

Bad: there is a very bitchy competitive atmosphere between Vine reviewers - not everybody - and getting people saying your reviews aren't helpful is demoralising whether or not you feel it's deserved.