Extremo

It's not advertising, it's exposure. Neversummer isn't asking me to sell their boards. They're asking me to give them, and you, an honest opinion. I can't speak for the other design team members, but that is what I plan on doing.

I would have never stepped foot on a Never Summer board because they have never appealed to me. But now they're making a solid effort to develop their park/freestyle boards the same way they've done with their big mountain stuff. My plan is to ride the boards, figure out what they need to get rid of, what they need to keep, and what they need to add, and I'll share that with everyone. My opinion doesn't trump anyones. If someone's got something to add about a product I'm on, anyone is welcome to chime in.

Varza

Oh, that would be sweeeeet! I had a bit of a hard time researching women's boards, since I read (on here I think it was) that some are just "men's boards sized down", and as such don't work quite as well for a lady as a board that was specifically design with her in mind.

Sorry, off-topic. I don't want to be a part of this It is what it is. Carry on.

poutanen

+1!!! I will say that unbiased reviews are excellent. We need more of them in general. I find this forum somewhat like tripadvisor. I post reviews of stuff I buy, in the hopes that it'll help other people make a decision, and in turn I hope to get the same help back.

Do I give a shit if anybody else buys a Burton or a Virus after I've wrote something positive about them? Nope. I don't get a cent out of it, or free gear, or anything. I just hope to inspire other people to write reviews of their gear.

This is a dictatorship, not a democracy! And I am apparently not part of the politburo ...

Leo

I'm not singling you out or being hostile Eat. I'm not being hostile to anyone. Actually, the reverse is true in my mind. I'm getting hostility as a Design Team member.

Countless comments insinuating that we are going to biased because of free gear. Yet over and over my point is ignored that myself and others have access to other free gear and have had that access for quite some time. The other point being ignored that a lot of the other team members were pre-existing NS customers.

I do agree some bias will result. That's human nature and you can't knock anyone for that. You even have bias as a person who purchases a product because now you have to deal with the fact that you spent a good chunk of change on the product. In fact, it could be argued that people who pay for their gear are much more prone to bias. Which actually supports my prior point that the NS hype is from customers, not the Design Team or NS themselves.

Hopefully some of you can understand this and still treat our reviews like you did before we became a part of the NS Design Team.

By the way Eat, I'll happily join your review team so go on ahead and send me some gear.

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Leo

This is what happened. The riders were messaged with something very similar to that.

You really expect NS or any other company to make a public post about it? How much spam and PMing do you think would result with people begging to be a tester?

Be real about this Binary.

NS reached out to members of this community privately and for good reason.

Then NS wanted to make the announcement of this endeavor, but people like YOU had to leak the post before-hand. That obviously made things look shady to outsiders which is why that thread was made visible shortly after your leak.

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EatRideSleep

I get it. Like I said, I really don't have a problem with it. It just seems odd that one brand would have an official sbf related presence/entity and some raising of eyebrows is to be expected.

This level of exposure is smart advertising. No denying that. Again, not a problem. NS might not be asking you, Extremo, to "sell" their boards. But every post, comment, etc on the brand will benefit the brand in the end. Whether their intent is to bring a better product to the industry or generate talk then cash out in the end doesn't really matter when it comes to exposure. It appears the intent of NSDT is the former, which is solid. But even bad press is good press as it's said. I commend NS for a brilliant exposure strategy. Very smart

Rockpen

Insert Cartman voice

Screw you guys, I'm going to Unity.

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Man, the Internet sounds like a tuff place to ride.

seriouscat

Sorry wolf I am going to disagree. As a bystander who could care less about any of the previous post above, I would say your point there is completely invalid.

Yes it is a private forum. But if vertical sports is interested in this as a business, then shutting down equipment review is equivalent to suicide. Political forums (which I never did visit) serves no purpose other than a traffic generator. Shutting down equipment reviews, and it more than halves my interest as a member to be here.

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“I train every day of my life as they have never trained a day in theirs.” – Alexander Karelin

binarypie

Yeah because I'm the only person on this forum who clicks "New Posts" at the top of the page?

Although, I will admit I'm the only one who probably has google alerts around these brands and others despite the fact I'm not a blogger.


Oh and lets be real.

A public posting claiming "we are forming a team" is very different than "PM: hey scott we want you to hand pick riders for our super secret dev team" ...

If you did the first then the second. You would be just fine and no one would be pissed at you.

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SimonB

To be honest, he just posted a link to a thread which I (and most likely others) had access to since Vince's first post in it. It's not like he did any kind of hacking.

I personnally think the Design Team is s good idea.

Maybe you should talk Burton into having its design team and section on the forum... That would even things out