:-) I'm glad this got posted on here. We are building a product review site & I was super tempted to leave a comment on techcrunch. Alas, our site isn't far enough along, nor is it prepared for that kind of attention.
PowerReviews/buzzillions has a pretty clever business model. Essentially its creating Sheep that $hit grass. It is a step beyond it's competition iNods, which is two steps beyond ViewScore, which are both only marginally more useful than just searching google to find reviews.
But what I (we) think would be a lot cooler, is building a community around and for this tech consumer market.
Our site ( http://revvu.com ) uses a user-driven model for centralizing consumer electronic reviews on the web. Users can submit reviews that they find, or blog, or want to share. Then the community can vote reviews up or down (based on value) per each individual product page. (sort of reddit style)
Votes on reviews effect the weight of ratings, forming a dynamic review score that reflects the opinion of the masses.
We just launched on Monday, so karma is not yet visible. Also, our social network aspect is not in place yet. That aspect will be the key to creating a strong community, creating an addicting user experience, and creating a way to share (read: show off) the things you own & are interested in.
I think PowerReviews is a cool concept, and will probably work for some retailers... but they (like everyone else in this space) don't get "it" yet. Aside from the arbitrary use of tagging, their site isn't really reflecting any of the advancements or evolutions of the way people use the internet today. They have found a business model that seems feasible and built an idea around it in a market that NEEDS improvement. What they lack is a carrot to attract users (those seeking reviews) to care, return, or get involved. Which might be fine for them, if thats not what they want. If thats the case though, suggesting that PowerReview (or buzzillions) "may get the market" doesn't sound very likely.
Anyway, we'd really appreciate feedback on our site. This is a very sharp community. We would certainly be interested to hear from, or chat with, anyone who has feedback/suggestions for us.
your sheep analogy is terrific. just... brilliant.
I think PowerReview has an interesting strategy in that, aside of your sheep analogy, they aim for corporate partnerships; they are closer to the "B" in B2C. revvu's strategy, if I'm not mistaken, is much closer to the "C." And in this aspect I would think the "it" for the B-approach and C-approach are different.
A more immediate competitor for you might be epinions.com?
Sure epinions would be a closer comparison to us, because we do allow user reviews.
Our approach though, is mostly to let people submit links to outside reviews. There will always be CNet & engadget (and these will be submitted), but what we're hoping for is a place to help people find reliable reviews from lesser known sites like audioholics, i4u, GSM arena, or the hundreds or thousands of tech blogs like digitalconsistency.com that pop up all the time.
Forming a user-driven centralized hub for consumer electronic reviews from all over the web.
Product reviews help common people lookup and see what are advantages and short comings of the product. But i have seen quite a lot of them biased. One such example being movie reviews, its alll hyped and tampered with. Be it movies or products/services, that kind of trust and credibility is need of the hour. There is no guarantee to see and find out if its being rigged. So a better model will be to allow reviews with good and bad points. Allow users to speak up with proof if good features are indeed hyped or to provide a proof which shows its indeed bad feature. As proper proofs come into play, there may be clearcut credibility in the process
This is what our site(revvu) is aiming to do. Much like reddit, users are afforded the opportunity to vote reviews up or down, giving more useful reviews more weight and reviews of less value a smaller amount of weight. Eventually users will build karma and legitimize their opinion throughout the community.
Simply not displaying who rated you up or down (just like on here) is the first step towards that.
That is definitely something that has been a consideration since day one though. Epinioins was widely disqualified as a reputable source because people formed such "cartels" to take advantage of their paid review model.
But still people can open multiple accounts or ask their friends to log in and hike up the karma? They can manipulate the reviews and swing it in their favour
PowerReviews/buzzillions has a pretty clever business model. Essentially its creating Sheep that $hit grass. It is a step beyond it's competition iNods, which is two steps beyond ViewScore, which are both only marginally more useful than just searching google to find reviews.
But what I (we) think would be a lot cooler, is building a community around and for this tech consumer market.
Our site ( http://revvu.com ) uses a user-driven model for centralizing consumer electronic reviews on the web. Users can submit reviews that they find, or blog, or want to share. Then the community can vote reviews up or down (based on value) per each individual product page. (sort of reddit style)
Votes on reviews effect the weight of ratings, forming a dynamic review score that reflects the opinion of the masses.
We just launched on Monday, so karma is not yet visible. Also, our social network aspect is not in place yet. That aspect will be the key to creating a strong community, creating an addicting user experience, and creating a way to share (read: show off) the things you own & are interested in.
I think PowerReviews is a cool concept, and will probably work for some retailers... but they (like everyone else in this space) don't get "it" yet. Aside from the arbitrary use of tagging, their site isn't really reflecting any of the advancements or evolutions of the way people use the internet today. They have found a business model that seems feasible and built an idea around it in a market that NEEDS improvement. What they lack is a carrot to attract users (those seeking reviews) to care, return, or get involved. Which might be fine for them, if thats not what they want. If thats the case though, suggesting that PowerReview (or buzzillions) "may get the market" doesn't sound very likely.
Anyway, we'd really appreciate feedback on our site. This is a very sharp community. We would certainly be interested to hear from, or chat with, anyone who has feedback/suggestions for us.