
Product Reviews: Everyone Wants A Piece Of The Market, But PowerReviews May Get It - jcwentz
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/08/product-reviews-everyone-wants-a-piece-of-the-market-but-powerreviews-may-get-it/
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mauricecheeks
:-) 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.

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whacked_new
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?

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mauricecheeks
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.

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mukund
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

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andybourassa
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.

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mukund
What will happen if people form a cartel and hike up or lower karma? How do u
plan to take care of this mischief?

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mauricecheeks
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.

~~~
mukund
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

