#BTV #VT – Posted by David on his FPF today…
I asked on the Shelburne Front Porch Forum if anyone had experience with ophthalmologists and cataract surgery in the Burlington area and quickly got eight responses, all of them extremely helpful. What a good resource…
Greg Sterling blogged today (in part)…
The Sunday Times in the UK writes that Yell employees wrote 6,700 reviews for the site (TrustedPlaces) in a month for an internal contest. According to secondary reports:
Staff at the firm’s Reading HQ were encouraged to write reviews for the company’s website Trusted Places – a site boasting user-generated recommendations of places to visit – by the offer of prizes such as an iPad and Amazon vouchers, according to the Sunday Times.
The article and information are presented as something of an expose or scandal. However I don’t necessarily agree. If the reviews are real and authentic they’re not illegitimate in my mind. But it’s a close call…
Well… I’m not sure how 6,700 reviews written by paid staff for some kind of internal contest could be considered “real and authentic.” More importantly, this fuels a not uncommon suspicion that many online reviews are B.S. It’s just too easy to stack the deck with reviews from people who have a stake in the business being reviewed or in the host site itself.
We often hear from people who place a high value on reviews read on Front Porch Forum. They use terms like “real” and “authentic” because that’s what they are… postings from clearly identified nearby neighbors typically offered in response to a request from a neighbor… “can anyone recommend a good plumber?”
Also, each recommendation is seen by everyone in the neighborhood, not just those few who happen to be searching for a plumber. This leads to conversation among neighbors… sometimes on FPF, often via email, and even more commonly face-to-face.
So… a huge database of potentially bogus reviews from strangers… vs. a few reviews from clearly identified nearby neighbors that lead to conversations among neighbors on the sidewalk. Two different propositions.
Among its many uses, people use Front Porch Forum to find and recommend plumbers and dentists and all sorts of services in between. This leads others to ask… “oh, so FPF is like Angie’s List?” Well, yes and no. Yes, in that both FPF (in our one pilot city) and Angie’s List (in its 250 cities) will help you find a roofer. And, no, in that we have different missions.
Front Porch Forum’s mission is to help neighbors connect and build community… and we do that by facilitating conversation among clearly identified nearby neighbors about all sorts of topics.
I don’t know Angie’s List’s mission, but here’s a quote from The Local Onliner today…
Angie Hicks, the co-founder and namesake of Angie’s List, said she thinks of her company as a direct marketing machine. Speaking at ClickZ’s Online Marketing Summit in San Diego this morning, Hicks noted that “we’re direct marketers at heart. If it doesn’t perform, it’s out.”
Here’s Front Porch Forum boiled down to two slides…
CitySquares in Boston and beyond says business is good with advertisers’ coupons being hot.
Citysearch rebuilt its site. “Elements of the revamp include a more intuitive interface, an embrace of social media, a major focus on video, some new twists in mobile, and the development of a full-fledged local ad and content network that offers an alternative to Google’s dominant position.” -Local Onliner
Service Magic is doing very well, despite the general economic conditions. Co-founder Rodney Rice’s “6 Keys to Success in Local Services” via Andrew Shotland:
Angie’s List took in more VC money recently, bringing it’s total raised to about $66 million. And Shotland reports Angie Hicks saying “The biggest competitor in the space is ‘your next door neighbor.’” Interesting. In this light, Angie’s List offers another way to buy your way out of something you just can’t find the time to do… get to know the neighbors and have conversations with them. Front Porch Forum, on the other hand, is free and uses things like plumber recommendations among clearly identified nearby neighbors as a way to help connect neighbors and lead toward more vital communities.
And again from Shotland…
The thing I love the most about both Angie’s and Rodney’s talks is that they are both very much outside the local search/Silicon Valley community in some ways (well Angie did raise a bunch of $ from VCs and Rodney did sell out to IAC, but besides that), but they are both incredibly successful.