What we're about

By Mike McGann
Posted Saturday, December 2, 2006

As you probably know, the Internet is full of people who are self-declared experts.

And I suppose that includes me. And while former pitcher/cultural icon Jim Bouton noted that “you can’t throw your resume on the mound” I think it’s important to do so. Having written professionally about consumer electronics since 1995 for some of the industry’s largest consumer and trade publications (Home Theater, E-Gear, Home Entertainment, HDTV Etc.,TechLiving, DigitalTV, and Dealerscope among others), I’m not your garden-variety tech Website owner.

In addition to writing for and managing various magazines, I was also an early online writer, having been among the first contributors at the legendary, fabulous and much-missed E/Town.com and I’ve written for CNet as well.

After wandering off into the wilds of elective politics and then starting — and selling off — a sports magazine publishing company, I’ve decided the time is ripe for a site that is more professional than some of the amateur sites out there — and less out of touch than many of the professional sites out there. One other ingredient — whether on the Web or in magazines — seems to be missing: fun.

Most of these publications act like they’re Moses issuing the Ten Commandments and take themselves way too seriously, the plague of giant corporations owning most Web sites and virtually all magazines.

And almost all of these publications are compromised, too, even if some of them don’t realize it. All of them take ads from the industry, i.e. the companies that make products. Hey, look, I love money too, (you’ll note the ads I have on this site) but it has become increasingly hard to give fair and unbiased reviews to companies paying the rent. And too often, back in the day, a bad review, no matter how justified, meant getting ads pulled.

While this made magazine publishers (the almost always former ad sales guys who run most magazines) go nuts, five or six years ago, now the loss of such ads can kill a publication. Print advertising is in the sewer, to put it bluntly, and publications need every last ad. Soon, magazine editors became more concerned about making sure reviews portrayed “the marketing message of the product” rather than whether the product was any good or not.

And while I don’t blame magazine editors for doing everything they can to keep their publications viable and prevent having their staffs laid off (which happened at a lot of industry publications, anyway), TekTruth is not bound by such things, as our ads come from a network, which is why we have banks, carmakers and so on, in addition to tech-related ads.

We can write the unvarnished truth about a product, not in a preachy, Consumer Reports kind of way, but in a manner to help you to decide whether it meets your needs and is worth your hard earned money. No matter what we write, we won’t lose our ads. We make money from people reading the site, and passing it along to others, by word of mouth. So, in the end, the writers and editors at TekTruth have to answer to only one master: you, the reader.

That lets us cut through the “marketing message” and get down to the facts of the matter: does the product do what it says it does, does it do it well and what kind of a value does it represent when compared to other products in the marketplace.

And unlike a lot of publications, our writers are interactive. Ask them a question on the forum and they’ll answer. Suggest a story or product for review and we’ll try to accommodate you.

We will try some fun things — and keep trying new ideas to keep this an interesting and compelling site, including podcasts, video, show coverage and so on.

If you have a comment or concern, register for the forum or drop me an email at mike (at) tektruth.com