Foreign Perspectives

One dilemma that the business about sponsored reviews poses is that of the money on offer influencing what’s written but it isn’t like that in the vast majority of cases, at least for me.

Yes, it’s true that I’ve written things for money on specific topics that I’d not otherwise have covered here but in a lot of cases I might well have written about those things had I come across them via some other means. Take, for example, the previous post on the villas in Costa Rica. Would I have written anything about Costa Rica had I not been asked to write that article? Well, yes, I would have eventually. After all, I’m working my way around the world on Whole Earth which will eventually cover Costa Rica.

Would I have written about those villas though? Hard to say. I run accommodation listings sites and I mention properties on them now and again so if those villas were listed there then chances are that I would write about them in due course. After all, they’re quite unique so it’s fairly easy to run up something about them.

Did the money influence what was written? Sort-of to the extent that the advertiser asked that one or two specific pages be mentioned but it didn’t affect the content of what was written as such.

What if it’s about a travel site that I don’t like though? Well, you’re about to find out that doesn’t influence me either!