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.

Dear Neighbors – Thank you so much for all the wonderful recommendations that we received for painters. There is nothing like having a recommendation from a neighbor. We thank you and our house thanks you!

That’s lovely.  And just now I see that Jeanne followed up with one of her own…

About those house painter recommendations…

Front Porch Forum works well as a community/neighborhood information system.  If you are responding to someone’s request for a recommendation, please post the recommendation on Front Porch Forum rather than emailing the recommendation directly to the private email address of the initial query.  If the recommendation is openly posted we all can benefit from the advice and it will be in the archives for all to search.

I couldn’t have said it better myself!

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.”

“Also on my mind — the best almond croissant I’ve ever had in my life — last Saturday — hot out of the oven from the Backdoor Bakery (my stomach thanks Front Porch Forum).”  -Catherine

This is a “community supported bakery”… locals buy shares in advance and get regular doses of fresh baked yum yums… reduces the risk for the mom and pop owners of this treasured local small business.  Suzanne Podhaizer of Seven Days wrote about it recently.

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:

1. Build supply before demand
2. Choose the right vertical focus/right branding
3. Execute as a service business, not a dot com (too true)
4. Control customer acquisition costs – apply real business metrics
5. Utilize technologies that make sense now – not in 3, 5 or 10 years
6. Focus on yourself, not the competition (the best advice ever)

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.

positions the company as a deeper dive into events, which breaths more functionality into all of the nuances of planning local outings. With the tag line, people, places, plans, it also brings in some social features and local search functionality.

The value proposition lies in the integration of these otherwise disparate local media categories. The idea is that a group of friends can plan a weekday dinner outing, find the location, read reviews (Yelp integration), invite people, and set up a landing page as a central source for event management. One can argue that this already exists with Google Maps, Yelp, and Evite, but the main point is that it doesn’t exist all in one place.

Center’d formerly was known as FatDoor.

Getting people to submit reviews is hard. We’ve seen incentives such as $5 coffee cards (a lot), $10 gas cards, and direct donations to charity (InsiderPages‘ current model)…

This month, Angie’s List, a paid service founded in 1995 that counts 650,000 members… launches a review campaign with the biggest review incentive we’ve seen yet: a free Flip video camera for 15 submissions. The camera is worth about $120. Reviewers also get entered into a $5,000 sweepstakes.

The twist is that all 15 reviews must be for local services, and three of the submissions must be for Angie’s new medical category. The reports on Angie’s List aren’t likely to be rushed affairs, since each one follows a template with six questions — and your name is on it.

Whether you call them the “Three Ms” – members, messages and moolah – or the “Three Cs” – community, content and cash – one of the three critical elements to any Web 2.0 site is “user generated content.”  Those with the magic attract content, while others pay for it.  Some people get bent out of shape about this kind of thing… see it as a sin against all things webby and wonderful.  Not me.

Angie’s List is an established successful big business.  They charge people to participate and now they pay  people in certain cases to write their reviews.  This seems similar to the business of publishing as we’ve always known it… a publisher pays a writer to write and then sells the writing to readers for a fee.

Front Porch Forum does not charge its members to participate… to read or to write… although we have given away a few donated ball game tickets and gift certificates in raffles among members who posted recently.  Who knows what the future will bring?

I think we’ll see more and more experiments among Web 2.0 sites to capture a greater share of the three Cs.  Or is it the “Three Rs?”  Readers, ‘riters, and revenue.  Gotta have lots of all three!

UPDATE:  Andrew Shotland chimed in too.

Join your local Front Porch Forum and let your neighbors know who you are and what your business is! (www.frontporchforum.org)

Yes sir… and many have and do.  Thanks Rachel.

Hi neighbors, I received a lot of responses regarding mechanics last week, and also had a request from Sandra to share what I learned.  Here’s what folks had to say:

Katharine says: “we went to the other Kaigles and have had good luck, plus they sell fine xmas trees in nov.  they seemed to honor Christian’s work and were sort of in a position to help the customers that were formerly from RKaigles.”

Ryan says: “I’ve used the guy down at the Rotary for several small jobs….brakes, suspension…things of that nature.  There not set up to do alignments or machine work so you may need to find another place for those items.  What I do like about him is how he goes over the car with you to show you the problem and his hourly rates are pretty low, 45/hr last time I checked.”

Stephanie says: “I highly recommend bringing your cars to SVS on Batchelder St, just off Home Ave.  Darren is the main guy there and he is fantastic.  As a fairly naive, female car-owner it was important to me to find a straight-forward, no-nonsense mechanic.  SVS is the real deal.  I have had a few instances where the dealer has told me it would be over $1200 in work and Darren has taken care of it for $400.  And it’s a no-frills kind of establishment.  He’s a bit gruff, but I take comfort that I’m not paying for a socialite, I’m paying for quality work.”

Tom says: “I have been pleased with the work of Double G Auto on lower Birchcliff Pkwy. They used to run the Rotary Gulf, until 2-3 years ago. I have been pleased with their reasonable, quick and well done work on our 13 and 9 year old foreign cars. Hope you find this useful.”

Patricia says: “‘double G auto’ on birchcliff pkwy (behind champlain chocolates) is where i go and would highly recommend them.”

Mary says: “I use Double G Auto (Gary Sylvester) at 43 Birchcliff Pkwy (which is real close).  He used to be Rotary Gulf but wanted to do auto repair without pumping gas.”