ShaneBaxtor.com

So the other day I posted my first SB.com review online; I didn’t announce it on Facebook or anything like that as I would normally do because it was more about me just dipping my toes into the back end to figure out how I want to attack what I want to do.

The first thing you need to know is that I haven’t left TweakTown.com, Cameron and I are as good a mates as we have ever been and to be honest I’m doing more work for the site than ever. For the past few years my focus has been Video Cards and Memory, over the past few months though as TweakTown has grown I’m now doing Displays (Monitors, Projectors and TVs) and recently I’ve received my first GPS samples. The latest subjects are all to do with helping offer another level of information to our readers, and I use the word our readers because while I have no financial stake in the site, working at TweakTown for 7 years means that the people that read and appreciate my reviews are like my extended family.

Like most young 25 year olds though I have goals and ambitions, I’ve seen a hole in Australia when it comes to getting information out there and I intend to help plug it.

When I started my blog I had no intension on doing reviews, let me give you the tip, in 5 months and 14 days I’ve done 80 yes eight zero reviews for TweakTown. I’m one of very few global full time writers for a tech website and one of even fewer when it comes to Australia. Since I went full time for TweakTown in 2008 I’ve done 339 reviews. It’s not hard to do the maths, I’m a reviewing machine lol.

In 7 years though I’ve talked to everyone from Marketing Executives, Wholesale and Retail Store Owners to End Users. I’ve learnt a lot about the Australian market and figure that I’ve got a good enough understanding off it to really offer something better then what the current magazines in Australia do.

I’m at a level in my work life that my productivity is through the roof, multiple test beds, stream lined procedures and templates that have taken me years to perfect mean that I can just power through reviews these days. Its these reasons why I can offer the companies I deal with such fast turnaround times on TweakTown reviews.

Over the past few years I’ve been writing for some local magazines, here I’ve been doing Video Card reviews and RAM along with a few other things. What I was able to offer companies was better exposure for their samples, I was able to offer them the review on TweakTown they would always get and then some Video Cards and memory would also get reviewed in some of Australia’s biggest magazines.

So the question is what do I want to review? Well anything and everything. I’d review a fridge if you want to send it to me, my drinks do need to be cold you know. In all seriousness though the aim is to focus on the normal computer goodies for now. By covering things like motherboards, hard drives and CPUs items that are covered by other writers at TweakTown I’m able to expand my knowledge on the areas that interest me with firsthand experience. I really pride myself on my knowledge of Video Cards and Memory because of firsthand experience.

So there’s a few things that people who want to send samples too me need to know, if you send me Video Cards and Memory a review will always go on TweakTown before anything else, much the same way a product was dealt with when I was writing for the magazines, instead of being limited to only 2 video card reviews a month though there is no limit for SB.com; one of the biggest factors I’m pushing when compared to Australian magazines.

So other things, motherboards, SSD and more. If you send me a motherboard you’re sending Shane of sb.com a motherboard not Shane of TweakTown.com. Chris at TweakTown offers 12 page reviews covering loads off information about hard drives, Sean offers the same sized reviews for TweakTown on motherboards. I want to offer reviews here at about 4x the size of a magazine which equates to around 1000 – 1200 words. They’ll be a single page and are aimed to offer significantly more information than a 300 word magazine review; at the same time in a much quicker lead time.

The information in my reviews will be more generalised, in much the same way I can be at my local game store and check IGN on my iPhone to see if a game looks good you’ll be able to quickly fire up SB.com, fire through a review on a product and hopefully be able to make a decision.

This brings me to my advertising plan; my main focus is about offering Wholesalers and Retailers in Australia a chance for someone to go straight from the review to a retailers website and buy the product. Its designed so if someone wants to buy from their local computer store and they don’t sell the product they can say it can be bought at X Wholesaler. What I hope is that retailers will be able to expand their line up with new products and Wholesalers will hopefully be able to pick up some new customers.

” Where to Buy (Wholesalers): Do you sell the HD 5970 TOXIC in Australia? Email us for Ad opportunities.
Where to Buy (Retailers): Do you sell the HD 5970 TOXIC in Australia? Email us for Ad opportunities”

Then the retailers who advertise will be able to hopefully pick up some new customers. The aim is to cap retailers to around 10, the idea is that if I reviewed a Gigabyte Motherboard which is something most computer stores in Australia offer , when it comes to showing where the product can be bought I’m not showing 100 retailers making the whole process very counterproductive, instead I’m aiming for 1 WA, 1 SA, 3 VIC, 3 NSW, 1 or 2 QLD and 1 TAS. Wholesalers are a different story though since few wholesalers cross sell the same brands there’s no cap, worst case a Gigabyte product is reviewed only two or three wholesalers are listed.

I hope that helps cover some of the plans and helps clear some confusion. Not only am I not leaving TweakTown, I’m not aiming to compete with it (it does 3x the traffic of all Australian Tech Magazines combined, it would be near impossible for anyone to start a website today and compete with those numbers) I’m not planning to compete with any tech site really, instead my aim is to offer something between a magazine and a typical tech website. It might not be anything new on a global scale but it should be something new for the Australian market and something the Australian market is missing because while it’s a small market it’s an important one.

When it came to naming this piece I was fighting with myself; I didn’t want to use the word breaking for the simple reason that the reviews I’ve done over the years that have been released before an NDA lifted we hadn’t signed an NDA.

Over the years we’ve released quite a few reviews before the NDA date for the simple reason we didn’t sign an actual NDA. We have a great relationship with companies like Gigabyte, Sapphire, Galaxy to name just a few but you have to be in contact with NVIDIA, Intel, AMD and what was then ATI.

The best way to get in contact with the big boys is for them to notice you, a company like Intel was never an issue. If a new product was coming we had a CPU and if need be a motherboard to go with it, VGA cards on the other hand where a bit hit and miss, 90% of the time we got the sample before NDA but other times we didn’t because NVIDIA or ATI hadn’t said to particular companies make sure TweakTown get a sample.

It was time to play ball; the 9000 series from NVIDIA was what started a small but strong line of early released graphics cards.

It all started with the review of the Galaxy 9600 GT. We released the review on the 15th of February 2008; the date the NDA lifted was the 21st. Hey we didn’t break any NDA, we didn’t have an NDA and it was time to get noticed.

This review was linked everywhere; and when I say everywhere I mean everywhere. We pissed a lot of people off with this review, the most obvious was Galaxy in which this was the last item we received from them for a long time; actually I remember a legal letter getting sent to the boss from them. Of course they didn’t have a leg to stand on since we hadn’t even talked about an NDA with the company and of course NVIDIA wasn’t in contact with us so we didn’t have a wide spread NDA that covered the model be it from any brand.

That review really ruffled some feathers though; so what happened? We got black listed! What’s that mean. Well it means that NVIDIA tell companies to not send any NVIDIA products to the site. It’s TweakTown though, and it only takes one company to say we’re not missing out on a review from TweakTown, in turn another company goes well it’s a bit unfair that there NV card gets reviewed and not ours so we’re also sending over a product.

So what happened? NV had us black listed wouldn’t talk to us and we end up with a 9800 GX2 before NDA date. So I did what I did best, busted out a review ASAP and got it online, this time the 9800 GX2 was published on TweakTown March 15th 2008, 3 days before the NDA was lifted. Boy did that drive people crazy, here you are with a site black listed by a chip manufacturer and they’re still releasing reviews of products before they’re even suppose too.

The problem was only 10 days later on the 25th of March 2008 before anything was able to really happen about that review we posted the 9800 GTX review which wasn’t suppose to get released until April 1st 2008.

While NVIDIA continued to be unhappy with us we formed a great relationship with ATI at this point. They saw what we were doing and knew that if you can’t beat them join them. Of course NDAs came through for their products, we got briefed on all the important information before hand and we’ve now been working with them for years. We deal with a number of ATI staff ranging from Australia to ASIA and the USA, we deal from PR people to product managers and we’re kept in the loop on everything important.

NVIDIA on the other hand is still a bit hit and miss, I’ve said that NVIDIA have a certain snobbishness that comes across when you talk to them and I don’t begrudge them for that, they’re one of the largest companies in this industry and if you can’t be proud of the company you work for then you truly can’t be happy. It’s probably the same reason people get a similar feel from me, I’m proud I work for TweakTown, I’ve worked at a few places before and I couldn’t care less about them; TweakTown is different though and if I come across as arrogant sometimes in regards to how I talk about the site it’s only because I’m proud I work there and some of the staff are not only great colleagues but my best friends.

NVIDIA don’t promise us anything; if I ask if we’ll get a GTX 470 and GTX 480 sample they won’t give me an answer, I’m sure we will as we deal with a lot of NV partners but everyone I speak to is worried about the cost of the product and the supply so again they don’t want to promise anything.

These days we talk to NVIDIA a little, we get information but they seem to want to update me on stupid ION technology something I don’t give a crap about instead of the GTX 400 series something I do give a crap about.

While there’s no real point to this whole post it just gives you an idea of another aspect of what I’ve done over the years and an understanding of why I did it. I hope you enjoyed it and learnt something else about the industry because to be honest reminiscing has bought a chuckle thinking about the ol’ days.

We live in a world where it’s about the people you know and not what you know; over the years I’ve always understood how important it is to have the right contacts but honestly until I started my blog I never really felt the true importance to knowing the right people.

Since the launch of my blog; which was unofficially the 20th of January the site has had 1937 Unique visitors for 7347 page views. Now while that feels like a small amount when compared to TweakTown which has probably done that amount of traffic in the time you’ve read this it’s a good number when comparing to other sites.

I was recently speaking to someone who’s been running there own site for a while now; they currently do 3000 page views a month. In less than a month since launch I’ve done over double that. Now I don’t want to give the impression that I’m trying to big note myself but these are numbers you need to know.

The day I launched my blog I had exclusive news about the Galaxy GTS 250 Dual GPU card. The first official day, I had news that most websites didn’t have and I had that because of the people I know. In less than 14 days I had secured a prize for my Australian readers and one for everyone else in the world. Again because of the people I know.

It’s so hard to start a website these days; especially a tech one for the simple fact they’re so many established ones. For starters you can’t just email Gigabyte and ask for a HD 5970, you don’t even know who to contact, and if you follow the links on the website you don’t get to anyone that’s really able to help you.

The thing is though the people I know give me the content to make my site what it is; what it all comes down to though are the people I don’t know. The people I don’t know are the ones visiting the site. Without the people I know though the people I don’t know wouldn’t have a reason to come.

In the first month I’ve done more traffic then I had hoped, upgraded to a dedicated server, got my first featured blogger, locked in two competitions and managed to keep up with almost a post a day on content that’s unique while pushing out 19 reviews for TweakTown this year.

On that note I just want to give a quick thanks to everyone, be it someone I’ve worked with for years or a first time visitor. if you want to keep up with blog posts you can check out my twitter account here or my Facebook page here. If you’re an Aussie you should jump on our competition here and if you’re from anywhere else check out our global competition here.

I try to be careful when I organise my video card samples, it’s hopeless getting in a bunch of cards that carry with it the same clocks and all that changes is the cooler. For the most part why should I waste my time benching a card that is going to give the same results, waste your time with results that are going to be similar and TweakTowns money with a review that’s not going to bring traffic.

Now there are some exceptions to this rule, if that model is part of a higher profile series like IceQ and iCooler from HIS or Vapor-X from Sapphire; due to the nature of these cards they get happily tested across all games even though they may carry with it the same or similar results in FPS related tests. People will Google these particular variations of models though and they shouldn’t have to look at a standalone review on a reference card just to know the performance.

On the other hand if Sapphire and HIS send two cards in at launch, slightly different coolers but both don’t slot into one of the aforementioned categories the excitement level isn’t high for card number two. So we do two reviews with these cards, the first is a standard single card review with card one. Who is card one? Well it’s generally the person who arrives first, in the case they both arrive at the same time it’s the person that told me they were sending it first.

For card number two though since it’s reference clocks and follows the reference PCB design to mix it up a bit I’ll make that second article a CrossFire or SLI one. This does a few things, one it makes the review different from the first, second we still get cooling numbers and noise levels off the card and finally it’s something a bit more interesting for you to read.

Recently though I had a company complain to me that the review looked like it was a CrossFire one and not on their card, to be honest I must’ve missed the part where I wrote about their package, card, cooler, included their names in all the graphs, wrote about the temperature and heat difference and wrapped it all up in a conclusion which covered both the technology and the card.

This company will now have a few options, the first is, unless they can be the first company to send a card before NDA they won’t get a standalone review, secondly they can just not send a card that has reference clocks if they’re not interested in being tested in a different fashion, instead they can just wait till OC models come out. Thirdly they can step back a second and realize I know what I’m doing after seven years when making sure that I give each company as much exposure as possible.

If the company doesn’t want to be included in a CF article many other companies will, after I have two reference cards I ultimately stop trying to organise any more until OC ones are available. Sure they can send an OC model which will get a standalone review but that company now misses out on a review on TweakTown, instead of getting two they now only have one. Since I make sure I don’t organise crap that also means the company will more then likely miss out on an award, that’s fine for me someone else can pick it up instead.

I’ve been doing TweakTown for over 7 years and this writing gig for even longer. These companies need to know that how I represent their product in a review is the best way for them. CrossFire and SLI articles are a way to mix it up a bit, it means I learn more about the performance and you do as well. It means that if someone on a forum goes, I’m thinking about having CF or SLI *insert mid range model* that forum goers can link to the article and say this is what you can expect.

After reading this I hope the company realizes that I do what I feel is the best for them. If they don’t though there’s someone else who is always happy to take the spot and get the exposure. As for other readers of my blog, this just gives you a bit of an idea of what we deal with behind the scenes, it’s one thing whinging because they don’t like the score, but to get an award, a high score and then complain that they don’t like how it’s tested; come on!

I’ve said that there’s so much that I want to do with my blog, I don’t want it to be another blog which regurgitates information that’s already on the net or gives the opinion of someone who doesn’t really matter. I want to bring you information that’s fresh and perspective of people who are in the industry.

For that reasons I’m glad to announce ShaneBaxtor.com first Featured Blogger. The idea behind a Featured Blogger is that they’ll be able to bring something to the table that I can’t, and the reason they’re here is because they’re unable to manage a blog which needs daily updates due to their own business or work commitments, instead with some spare time here and there they can give us a fresh perspective once or twice a month or every week.

The first Featured Blogger is a good friend of mine; Rex, Owner of iBuyPower Australia and PC Maniacs who has worked with me a number of times on TweakTown.com in some of our most exciting articles like HD 4870 CrossFire X @ 4GHz when I was living in Melbourne, Australia will be able to offer something I can’t.

Being the Owner and Operator of two of Australia’s premier e-tailors and a computer enthusiast himself, Rex is going to bring a perspective of what it’s like owning and operating these two websites. He’ll cover everything from why he’s selling one brand over another, insight of what it’s like running these businesses and his thoughts on the latest products he’s using himself.

We hope to have what will be known as the Power Report become a weekly feature but our plan for featured bloggers is that they’ll do what they can when they can.

Aside from this we’ll be starting competitions from next week, the plan is to have two one will be a global competition open to everyone which will more than like have a different sponsor every time we run one. The second is one open to Australian Residents Only and sponsored by PC Maniacs, the first prize that’s going to be given away is a Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard. Details on how to enter will be posted soon.

For now though I want to welcome Rex to what will become a premier board of Featured Bloggers and look forward to seeing his first Power Report.

Just a quick update on the site, and *Knock Knock* Delivery, we’re now on a dedicated server and since the transfer of the site happened when I would do *Knock Knock* Delivery it hasn’t happened yet. I will work on it though over the next 24 hours so keep an eye out. I also hope that the new server feels speedy

I actually started and deleted this Blog Post a few times in deciding if I should bother doing it or not, what I finally realized though is that this site is ShaneBaxtor.com and while my main focus is technology news a part of what the site is about is me.

I’ve always considered myself a bit of a confident person, considering I spend most my life behind a computer desk you do have to think that it’s not all that hard. I can wield my keyboard with the best of them in a slinging match on any good forum. What I’ve come to realize though is that I’m confident when it comes to business.

I’m one of those people who buys expensive things when I probably shouldn’t but feel confident in my skills that earning the money to pay for the item isn’t a problem (I think people like me caused the Finical Crisis ) and looking over my site the last few days I’ve realized that I’ve left subtle hints to myself that I am optimistic about how my site will go.

I mentioned in a post about myself that I like to live life by a bit of a motto, “It’s better to try and fail, then to not try at all.” Now before I go on I want you to know that since the official launch of my site I’ve made $1.81 from Google AdSense so I’m hardly a blog master and while making money from the site is a goal it’s not the motivation.

At the moment I’ve noticed two things about my site which stand out for me, when I started my new *Knock Knock* Delivery! series instead of doing #1 or #01 I instead chose to go down the #001 route. That’s because I’m confident that my site will be around for years and with the design of these posts only weekly that means I would need to be around for at least two years to break that first 0 in #001.

The second is the fact that in four days of having the site running I felt the need to organise a dedicated server for it (I figure this is a good chance to let you know that the site might have a slight bit of down time while I move it). I’m not talking about some cheap dedicated server either, with a friend who has six available I’ve taken the chance to pounce and make sure my site is ready for a level it hasn’t achieved yet. I’m confident though that in the near future if the site stayed where it was it would fall over and could cause more significant down time.

In the first six days I’ve had 209 unique visitors for 751 page views and yes I know it’s hardly dedicated server worthy but I want to be prepared because talking to people and thinking about it, 209 different people 6 days after the launch of a website is actually pretty impressive.

If you’ve ever heard someone say “Reach for the Sky” when it comes to setting a goal I say “Reach for the Sky, then a little bit further.” I don’t aim to be a self help guru or as mentioned already some kind of blog master, what I am though is someone who puts 110% into everything they do while realizing that “doing” is the only way to achieve those goals.

I write this today for two reasons, one to give you a better idea of what goes through that brain of mine and two hope that just one person reads this and says to themselves “you know, I can do that!”

Since we don’t want to make the whole post too heavy I’m working on a tech related post for my next one that is going to cover some of my thoughts from a review I finished today using the HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 video card from ATI.

As I look through my web traffic on what is really the third day of my blog being live and discover as the hours go by that people are coming past to visit, I felt that it was a bit unfair to expect people to visit a site in which they know nothing about the person behind it; this especially when the person behind it chose to use his name in the URL.

If you haven’t read the URL, my name is Shane Baxtor. If you know about me, the chances are that you’re a regular reader of TweakTown.com in which I’ve been present at for 7 years now. And over the recent years I’ve headed the Video Card and RAM reviews. If you don’t know who I am, you should do after reading this.

So, why a blog? – The reason is simple really. I want to bring what I learn to you in a semi-formal  way; be that information like a delay of a product, leaked specifications or the stuff that happens behind the scenes at TweakTown. If TweakTown is the office, the blog is my home.

Over time I want to do so much to the site when it comes to regular content. With so many colleagues and friends in the industry, I hope to invite them to become a featured blogger for pieces that interest them. There’s really so many people I work with that know so much, but simply don’t have the time to put finger to keyboard on a regular basis and let you know. 

For these people I want to do two things. One, use the information I get off them to create my own posts like I’ve done recently, but not only that, give them the chance to come out and have their say and give you their thoughts. This is something that I really want to do, but understand that I need to have it presented in a way that doesn’t look like self promotion.

I wouldn’t have a problem if GIGABYTE came out and wanted to do something about the 333 feature on their motherboard line-up or Sapphire and their Vapor-X, HIS and their IceQ and so on, but I want to read it in a way that doesn’t sound like a copy and paste from a press release. I want to see numbers on how their cooler is better than another’s instead of a simple up to 10% remark. I’m happy to do the work and give the numbers so that you can see the proof.

Something else I want to do is let you know the samples that I’ve received during the week in a weekly roundup style piece. The aim behind these posts will be to give you just an idea of what I get in a given week; sometimes it’s two samples, while other times it’s 10. During this I’ll also point you in the direction of some of the reviews I’ve done over the past week and give you a bit of extra commentary on the articles.

I hope to do these on Friday nights which for my American cousins will translate to probably early Friday morning thanks to the massive time difference we have with me situated here in Australia. So hopefully as Friday afternoon swings by and you find yourself trying to kill those last few hours at work, you’ll be able to find something in these pieces of interest.

Something that keeps me thinking about the future is a small motto I like to live life by; “It’s better to try and fail, than to not try at all.” So this is what I’m doing today and hopefully for days, weeks and years after. I’m trying, and as always, while I hope not to fail, it is only the worst thing that could happen.

I’ve added an About Me tag to this piece and as time goes on I’ll talk more about how I got into writing, TweakTown and freelanced for some of Australia’s top magazines. This post will also be linked to in the main blurb on the right hand side of the site. For that reason I will edit it over time by most likely linking to other important pieces of information about me.

For now, though, I hope you enjoy what I’m offering, I hope you enjoy my reviews at TweakTown and I hope that I can offer you something that you don’t get anywhere else.

- Shane Baxtor