Core 77 turns into product pusher

While it’s nice that Core 77 has opened the “Hand-Eye Supply” store in Portland, it’s getting a bit bothersome that half of the posts these days consist of advertisements to buy stuff from their store. I for one am not to keen on visiting a informational/trend blog only to find an agenda to sell you stuff. Time to get back to the basics.

Core77 isn’t alone in this. Half of my emails lately are “buy this” and “buy that” and not just Extenze either. It will stop after the holidays are over. (Right?)

Isn’t consumerism wonderful :slight_smile:

Meh.
I don’t mind it so much. At least they’re advertising interesting products and making demonstration videos that are more product reviews than ads (I particularly liked the Japanese Saw one).

Ditto. I’m planning on picking up that pocket reference book…

It’s all a revenue stream (I’m speculating a bit here, because I don’t really know what goes on behind the scenes) but anything that keeps money coming in helps make the site that much better. Regular contributors on the front page, coroflot, etc.

Sure, it’s about revenue stream. A brothers gotta make a buck, but it’s a fallacy to think that simply ‘bringing in the cash’ equates to a quality site. There’s more to it than that…unless I’m really missing something about a pair of safety glasses. It’s cool that they’ve got a shop up, but the thing is that this shop seems to be taking up more than its fair share of relevant article space. We need some meat, not just filler. A quick blob on the sidebar would suffice, eh?

I very well see his point. It already started to get on my nerves, dito. It might stop after christmas, though…

I have noticed this too, but to be devil’s advocate here: When I take into account that I’ve had my portfolio and resume on Core since the late 90’s (free of charge) and gotten countless freelance and career opportunities from that. Then I combine that with the scores of helpful tips, advice, and just all around cool stuff that I’ve gotten off of the site, I really can’t complain.

If Core needs to make a buck to pay the bills by peddling it’s wares on the home page, I’m not going to scream about it. Of course it also helps, as someone previously mentioned, that the stuff they are selling is generally pretty cool and often very useful to us design nerds.

I don’t mind it so much. It’s usually something interesting. I get more irritated by posts like that bagel slicer from a few months back.

But, then there’s those VEER stock photo inspirational posts which I think are totally out of line.