Zero Blaster Reviewed

Daniel Rutter writes "I've just reviewed the Zero Blaster, the smoke ring gun that ThinkGeek (among others) sell. It works. It's fun. It's a vortex ring physics demonstration with two triggers and a see-through mechanism. What more could you want for $20?" Thinkgeek and Slashdot are both owned by VA Software.

Comments

New category needed

[Anonymous Coward]

ads.slashdot.org

Re:New category needed

[sketerpot]

Well, at least the editors don't try to hide the fact that slashdot and thinkgeek are owned by the same company. Isn't integrity nice?

Conflict of interest, not that users are confused

[SuperBanana]

New category needed ads.slashdot.org

Agreed. What's particularly bad is that the editorial staff clearly recognizes the problem:

Thinkgeek and Slashdot are both owned by VA Software.

The issue I have is that they don't realize what the problem is. It's like they think the issue is readership not realizing thinkgeek is associated with slashdot. We don't have that problem when there's a blinking thinkgeek ad right above the story.

Rather, the problem is that it's a plain and simple conflict of interest. OSDN trumpets slashdot as an "award winning news site", but slashdot editors continuously display zero journalistic integrities. Fact checking, not "reporting" about companies you accept advertising from, etc.

If it were news about thinkgeek, the disclaimer would not only be appropriate, it would be necessary. This however, was entirely a product suck-up....complete with the linkage. All that was missing was a [add this to your cart and check out] link. The disclaimer is for when you think you need to disclaim to readers that there's a potential conflict of interest. The disclaimer does NOT justify posting blatant ads as legitimate news stories.