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eDrugSearch.com gets a peek inside Consumer Reports labs

Cary Byrd — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:27:49 +0000

As part of our visit to Consumer Reports headquarters last month to participate in the health blogger summit, we had an opportunity to tour the famous Consumer Reports labs — where they seemingly test every product under the sun, from cameras to stereos, home-gym equipment to washers and dryers. They even have food testers who have to sit behind metal doors waiting for food to taste — so the aroma from the test kitchen doesn’t cloud their judgment!

Here are a few of my photos from the tour (you can view the full set on Flickr):

This is where they test the audio equipment. It’s very quiet — and totally soundproof. Sometimes, when groups of schoolchildren or Boy Scouts tour the facilities, the editors will invite them to come in here and scream at the top of their lungs (with the adults on the other side of the door, of course.)

This is where they test the washers and dryers. To test the washers’ performance on various stains, they use test strips featuring a sample of every kind of stain you can think of, which they import from Europe at a cost of $30 each. They go through 1,000 of these strips during comparative testing, so you can see that doing this right isn’t cheap.

A Consumer Reports editor stands in the test kitchen — in front of those metal doors I was telling you about (under the coffeemakers).

We tried our hand at food testing, comparing two brands of chocolate chip cookies. We decided that the brand pictured wasn’t chocolatey enough.

The photography testing lab.

They use this simulator (as well as actual humans) to test the aerobic equipment.

I’ve been a reader of Consumer Reports for most of my life, so it was a thrill to see where all those ratings I’ve relied on came from. I plan to write some more posts about the conference, but I was determined to get these lab pics up this week!

Have a great weekend.

eDrugSearch.com attends Consumer Reports health summit

Cary Byrd — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:19:06 +0000

We were fortunate to be invited to a health blogger summit coordinated last Thursday by Consumer Reports. The event — held at CR’s headquarters in Yonkers, New York — was an opportunity to meet with the publication’s editors as well as other health bloggers, and to discuss the future of social media and social networks as they relate to the public health.

The event’s 31 attendees were also treated to an intimate Q&A with Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, who is on the board of Consumers Union, which owns CR.

Here are some of my pics from the event, with captions beneath each image. Click the pics to enlarge.

Julie Deardorff of the Chicago Tribune moderates a panel on health ratings systems, featuring (left to right) Dr. John Santa of CR; Avery Comarow, who edits “America’s Best Hospitals” for U.S. News & World Report; and Kathy Ciccone of the Healthcare Association of New York State.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is interviewed by CR Health Online Editor Trisha Brandon.

Craig talks with Organized Wisdom founders Steven Krein and Unity Stoakes and Wall Street Journal editor Scott Hensley.

Craig and Cary!

I have some thoughts on the substance of the conference which I’ll save for later posts. Needless to say, it was a great experience and it hatched a number of ideas that I plan to apply to our blog and our business.

Consumer Reports rings in 2009 by buying The Consumerist

Cary Byrd — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:32:08 +0000

As readers of this blog know, Consumer Reports is one of our favorite publications. We love the fact that they don’t accept advertising — and thus are not influenced by the threats of sponsors they might criticize. It’s one reason we trust Consumer Reports — on issues ranging from choosing a car to buying prescription drugs from Canada — over virtually every other source of consumer information.

The Consumerist, meanwhile, is a great blog and, like Consumer Reports, has never been afraid to criticize the biggest companies in the world when they let their customers down. Unfortunately, one result of this is that it’s had trouble selling advertising at the rates its level of readership merits.

On Wednesday it was announced that Consumer Reports is buying The Consumerist — which sounds like a perfect fit for both parties. Consumer Reports will no longer accept advertising on The Consumerist site, so they don’t have to worry about that problem any more. And The Consumerist will (hopefully) introduce more young people to Consumer Reports’ subscriptions and paid offerings.

I’ve subscribed to Consumer Reports online for years, and I can tell you that the small subscription fee has paid for itself many times over by saving me money and (in some cases) major buyer’s remorse.

More details on the deal here.

Congrats to both parties. We’ll be reading!