If you have not seen the disastrous Gillmore Game episode, take a look here. I wanted to toss a few bits into the ring about the whole meltdown, if I may. To begin, I have none of the great standing of any of the speakers. I respect them all, this is just a few thoughts from me.
To the manufacturer: An idea, when you are going to send out some free units of your product, publish a public list of who you are sending them to. Also, make the terms public. That is, if it is a one week test unit, put it online! Take away all chances of people worrying about whose unit is free, upfront. That would help immensely.
To the tester: Whenever you get something for free, even if it just a test, put it online. Here, make a public list of everything that you receive. Take an intern, and keep it up to date. With this, anyone can see what you have received. Put it online, keep it correct, and kill people’s bitching to a minimum.
There, how about that. If I received something for free, and I have a few times, I make it annoyingly public. Final thought, @arrington, take a lower key angel. You tend to be over aggressive in your remarks. And not just in this one circumstance, take a look at your Zuckerberg and Rose interviews. Both are examples on how you love to ask questions that you know will not be answered (for example: when you asked Kevin if had taken money off of the table in the latest Digg funding round), do not press them. You are smart, but be polite. And keep blogging, please.
