There are lots of different kinds of food blogs, and space for them all, so I really don’t think there’s much point attempting to judge across genres within food bloggery. For instance, there are some blogs which frequently have competitions, or run events or that type of caper and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t. Those blogs are no less a labour of love than this one or any other food blog.
That said, I have found it a bit confronting sometimes when following a newish (to me) blog to all of a sudden find a cheery product review for a jar of sauce or somesuch plonked in the middle of say, reviews of molecular gastronomy restaurants. (A real example, but not an Australian blog.) There are so many blogs out there that the appearance of a discordant review tends to make me hit delete – or at least ignore the mounting posts – in the feedreader.
Because most food bloggers aren’t comped things frequently, I think it’s good practice to say when something is free. If I’m reading reviews in a newspaper culinary insert or magazine I assume samples of all the products have been provided by eager marketeers, but I don’t make the same assumption with food blogs.
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