[andyotter]

" Guess I just have to wait till Bento 3 so I at least feel I got my money's worth from Bento 1"

- Quite so: I read nothing in this review that suggests Bento2 has got enough added functionality to make it worth shelling out another $50.

In fact, I find this review waaay to "misty eyed" - Bento1 was one of the most shockingly incompetent pieces of software to come from an Apple-centric stable. Truly a case of "Fur coat and no knickers" (UK English idiom!) -it looks nice only to continually frustrate when put to more than trivial use. I see nothing in this review to suggest that this has changed significantly. Rather than "If it ain’t broke, just try to make it better", more a case "OK, it's still broke, but let's fix a bit of it and stiff all those who spent months telling us how broke it was".

See my and other reviews on Versiontracker and all the comments on the Bento forum before parting with your cash.

Unless of course, your database needs go no further than making a list of Xmas presents (silly me; I thought TextEdit was sufficient for a task as trite as that...)

[dfs]

I agree, this was one of those MW "reviews" that reads more like a love-letter to a major purchaser of advertising space than a serious review. And the speed with which it came out after the release of Bento 2 was breathtaking: how could the reviewer possibly have tested it adequately before forming his conclusions? Sometimes (as in the case of the items of Adobe's new CS4 suite) MW will put out a quickie preliminary review, clearly identified as such, and then publish a more thoughtful in-depth appraisal later. That's something entirely different (and is clearly the responsible way to go) . On the whole MW does responsible journalism, but every now and then it will do something that makes one question the professional integrity of its editors. This is particularly so because at the very moment I'm writing this there's a link to Bento on MW's Reviews page (http://www.macworld.com/reviews.html) under the heading FROM OUR PARTNERS. How exactly is FileMaker a "partner" of MW, and how exactly how can MW run a fair and unbiased review of a product by a so-called partner?

[Chaac]

Dude, that comment was a knockout. I sincerely hope I never cross your way. Seriously.

I agree with you completely and that is why I am waiting for the Bento 2 review by Mac|Life. Although it is advertising a lot there, those guys are a little bit more careless of hurting sponsors' feelings.

I think you gotta read both to get real insight.

[sterlingz]

dfs - I strongly agree with your sentiment. Usually, I appreciate MW's reporting, but every once in awhile they make one question their independence. Another recent example was the MobileMe debacle. They published a pretty favorable review right out of the gates (even though key advertised functionality like iDisk browsing via web interface wasn't working at all) and then proceeded to ignore the total meltdown as there were days of outage, users lost all of their mail, and subscribers were generally outraged. Eventually, as Apple themselves were forced to take steps, they reported on that. But they totally missed the story as it was unfolding, and if you went by the article on the site, you would think MobileMe was a fantastic product.

To Macworld's credit though, they have supplied these forums which are a huge boon to learning about user experiences in more depth. I've really appreciated everyone weighing in about Bento - it's been a major help in deciding whether to skip this upgrade or not - much more so than the original article.

[Chris Breen]

I might as well post what I emailed to you:

Either you believe we have an ethical editorial policy or you don't. Fact is, we do -- we editorial types mostly don't know and completely don't care who advertises with us -- but again, you can believe that or not.

As for how a review can come out so quickly, we often receive beta copies of software and follow it along on through the GM. No software is reviewed until the GM is released but by that time the reviewer has a lot of experience with the product.

How exactly can we run a fair and unbiased review of a product by a so-called partner? Easy. As I hinted earlier, there's a firm wall between editorial and ad/sales. We actively reject any perceived pitches from people on the business side for the very reason that if we lose our integrity there's no reason for people to read what we write. We value our integrity as well as our jobs.

But again, believe it or not.

[Chaac]

Yes, the forum became more informative than the article... I really don't see the good side of that for MacWorld, except for just having a server that hosts it. I bet they really didn't think the comments would go this way.

THEY should be the ones giving the important, relevant, user-oriented insight. I am guessing a lot of people will not read the comments and they believed the "great" things about the good for small things but still very limited edition of Bento 2.

====

Addition: However, guys at MW... you do a good job and I like your magazine. It is this Bento article that I didn't like.

[dfs]

Read the whole run of reader reactions to that review on your b. b. and you'll see that I'm scarcely the only reader you need to convince. MW has a genuine image problem on its hands. The reviewer's overwhelmingly favorable appraisal of the product is in striking and rather curious conflict with pretty much everybody else's reaction.Then too, even if readers do accept your protestations, editors in your position have the "Caesar's wife" issue to face: you can't just avoid wrongdoing, you also have to avoid the appearance of wrongdoing. In this case, even if MW passes the first test, it fails the second.

[Chris Breen]

dfs said:

MW has a genuine image problem on its hands.

In your mind, perhaps. But then you jumped to the conclusion that because you disagreed with a review the reviewer and, by extension, Macworld must be on the take.

Which is just bullshit.

So, how seriously should I take this "genuine problem?"

[dfs]

You should take it very seriously indeed, Chris. An editor simply can't be too jealous about preserving the good reputation of his publication. And don't try to reduce this issue to my one person and "my mind" as if my reaction is purely subjective and I'm some sort of isolated crank or sorehead. Again, I invite you to read over the whole thread and take into consideration the disbelief and disgruntlement this review has provoked among readers who are familiar with the product. What I suggest you do is run a second and more in-depth review, written after the reviewer has had sufficient time for a careful appraisal, and assign it to a clearly unbiased outsider, who is neither a MW employee or one of your regular stable of reviewers. And preface it with an editor's acknowledgment of precisely why you have chosen to run it. I also suggest that you consider this issue of reviewing products by so-called "partners" and adopt some kind of special policy for them. Here's one hint on how you might handle the situation: whenever one of my local television stations airs a story involving its parent company, it explicitly acknowledges the relationship as part of its reportage.

[Chris Breen]

dfs said:

And don't try to reduce this issue to my one person and "my mind" as if my reaction is purely subjective and I'm some sort of isolated crank or sorehead.

But see, there's the crux of the biscuit. In point of fact, jumping to the conclusion that we're on the take is a crank/sorehead reaction. There are any number of reasonable ways you can respond to a review you disagree with. But once you suggest some evil motive behind a review from a publication that has demonstrated, on a routine basis, that it's on the up and up, you've entered sorehead territory.

[dfs]

Well, okay, Chris. I guess we'll have to leave it at that. Tell yourself I'm a isolated sorehead, it will make you feel better and spare you the necessity of any kind of self-examination or doubt about whether MW may just possibly have screwed up in running that review, and whether taking another look at its editorial policies might improve the magazine by keeping it from doing the same thing again. This approach, if nothing else, is a great formula for sleeping well at night. As far as I'm concerned, this ends our discussion.

[Chris Breen]

dfs said:

As far as I'm concerned, this ends our discussion.

You could not have more thoroughly underscored my point. Thanks for that.

Now back to our regularly scheduled discussion.

[Jason Snell]

There are two things going on here.

1. You can disagree with what we write. Reviews are, believe it or not, written by individuals, not committees. There have been plenty of Macworld reviews I've read and disagreed with. But if the difference are on opinions, and not facts, I'm fine with that. People will differ. You may differ with us, and that's fine.

2. You can say that we let advertisers, or a company's status as a known advertiser, dictate what we write. (It's simply not true.) By making this claim, what you are doing is saying that the only way that someone could disagree with your opinion is if they were being bribed. It's insulting. Quite frankly, it's on the level of asking, "have you stopped beating your wife?"

So: Saying you think our review was full of crap is absolutely your right. And who knows? I might agree with you, depending on the review. Accusing us of having our facts wrong is an even more serious allegation, but if you're right and we're wrong we'll correct our mistakes.

But accusing us of writing praise because someone's stuffing money in our pockets is not only incorrect, it's a bogus argument. How unfair would it be if I suggested that anyone who disagreed with our review of Bento must be a shill for a competitor?

[Chaac]

I think the best way to eliminate any doubt about what was the reason of such a positive review of Bento 2 (incomprehensible to most readers) would be to explain the real reason of such positiveness. If not, you're letting readers guess any sorts of things and, those who make good arguments tend to explain it for you.

Thanks.