Ah…Dyson Backlash

Those of that visit my blog a lot, know if I love something I sing its praises. Which is why I was so excited to be a part and get to host this awesome Dyson Program.

We are a site that caters to moms….and bloggers……..hence MOMdot: Where the BLOGGING MOMS go. So I don’t even think about changing tense when I know my Target audience is women.  If your not a guy and stumbled in our direction, when you see the hot pink, we figure you close the browser pretty quickly. Sure, sometimes a guy braves into this whole mom blogging world and leaves a comment. I feel like Patrick and I are BFF as he is the first guy to win a contest here.  And I let DH appear on here every now and then with some dancing or some way to whine about our sex life, but for the most part, its just us mom bloggers milling around drinking up the martinis and chocolate milk.

So today I get a notification of a link back on a site, where  a male blogger got ahold of our Dyson program and ripped it apart. Truth be told, the blog was funny, but I was taken out of context.  So let me clear it up.

1) When I referred to testing out the product and “convincing your DH to let you buy it”, I was not downing all womens lib. I am incredibly independent.  In fact, I make a good portion of the income in our home.  My DH and I share our household duties and in a ton of cases, he does more then I do. Who folded 4 loads of laundry last night…him. Who cleaned the kitchen? Him. Who is painting the kitchen. Not me, I can say that. But I DO do the vacuuming. I like it. I like a sense of immediate satisfaction of watching stuff being sucked into it and lines on the carpet. Its strangely soothing.

But if you watch the video I made about vacuuming, my DH was the one doing it. He has no problems splitting the duties in our home. But the fact is, women do the majority of household purchases, so it makes sense to let the female run the review. We want that perspective….the purchaser giving it a big fat up or a big fat down to other purchasers. And regarding asking permission for purchases,  I do have enough respect to go to my husband and talk about something that costs a significant amount for our household and discuss it. If he came home with a big screen without us talking about it, it would be his new wife, because I would be infuriated. We don’t have an extra 2K laying around…or an extra $500. Purchases are a conversation, because we both can bring incite to them. Maybe its because we are not rich. If I made $500K a year, maybe i would just bypass the whole joint relationship thing and do what I want…but we dont.

2) Yes, I do believe cleaning and cooking with new fun products is..well…FUN. I cant afford 150 new things every month and I do walk by them and sigh. If someone told me i could test out a Kitchen Aid mixer, I would do it. Why? Those things are like $400 and it would be nice to know if buying it really WOULD change my cake making..or if I should just save that money for a trip to the spa. And in our house, a nice vaccuum that actually works IS worth its weight. Oh, and I DO vacuum every day. EVERY. DAY.

3) We are not asking bloggers to go to their site and “advertise” the Dyson for us. We are inviting them to come onto OUR blog and tell us about it…for better or for worse, it if helped. This will be searchable for those that are looking for reviews on the product. I receive no less then 40 google hits a day from my past Dyson review, which means to me that people want to know before they buy a product. Americans want to know before they purchase what someone else thought.  Sure, if someone buys one and feels inclined to tell the world on their site if they have one, they may…..but this way, there is a central location where someone can come read specifically about the product if they want to know. I think its pretty responsible that Dyson believes so much in their product they are willing to let people test it without any other obligation. That’s what review bloggers do…they test out products. There are whole sites set up to do nothing but test out products. And we are just a blog hosting it..we are not Dyson. So the reviews you see on our site are truly just mom opinions, not Dyson testimonials.

4) There are lot of people hung up on how “cheap” Dyson is being by not letting someone keep the vacuum being tested. As stated originally, this one is for a trip..its for fun. Its just a program we cooked up for everyone that sighed over wanting to try one. Its being truly tested by vacuuming its way across country to new homes and seeing how well it can handle itself. I also mentioned there would be a few perks. Am I going to stand on here and tell you all of those? No way. I would have 100K entries for a free product and our review game would turn into PAID reviewers (and we all know how i feel about those), not someone who truly has a need for a product and wants to give it an honest shot. Reviewing is a big business online and there are lots of people that want to have a hand at testing something out. Those that do participate wont be left unhappy when they are done. But I’m not going to bribe someone to test out a product with an exchange for a free product.

5) When did people become so whiney?

6) Get over it.

~Trisha

ps: but thanks for the linky love