Just a few thoughts on the epinions.com phenomenon
Nov 03 '01
The Bottom Line Just a quick brainstorm, with some headlines. Go skim it :-)
Just jump to the part that interests you :-)
EBD write-off
* Why? The situation
* The protest
* The corporate answer
* Reflection
* Suggestions
Epinions chat
A problem that epinions.com has to fight
How to write reviews
How to rate reviews
Category specific problems
Is epinions going under?
* The partner program
* Less traffic
My Hopes (Summary)
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EBD write-off
Why? The situation
Around 10/25/2001 epinions.com announced that base royalties (one penny for each member page view on a qualifying review) would be dropped and compensation would only consist of “income share”. At the same time they removed the ability to edit or delete reviews. Another dropped feature (announced a little earlier) was the partner site technology.
Many members of the epinions.com community were very angry about these changes. The removed edit/ delete feature made us authors feel helpless. They reasoned that epinions had feared massive losses of reviews because of the change in the payment system (confirmed later in a “chat”).
The protest
As a form of protest, people posted community center comments (such as this) in highly popular product reviews. Then they would rate each other highly to ensure visibility.
I participated in this “EBD write-off” and I’m very proud of it. I also don’t regret my writing (deleted after the edit/delete feature was restored) nor do I regret to have rated those other articles highly. I actually had given Helpful, Very Helpful and Most Helpful ratings as I saw fit.
Indeed epinions.com’s TOS always contained the fine print that content can become read-only at any time and there was also always the provision to not qualify for eroyalties after 2 years. Indeed epinions.com is not a democracy. I believe though that everyone will agree that the company would be nowhere without the writers. Dropping the edit/delete feature shows distrust from the side of the company in the writers and in return writers may have lost some trust in the company.
The corporate answer
After 3 or 4 days, the edit/delete feature was magically back. The protester deleted their EBD reviews in return. The company then complained about the inappropriate behavior and indirectly threatened to remove those little titles (“Top Reviewer”, “Editor”) from people who participated in the write-off.
Reflection
Maybe you can only be a top-reviewer/editor if you conform to their rules? Note that at the time of this writing, top-reviewer/editor selections have not been posted yet, so maybe it will come out different.
I am very happy to say that several people that I respect highly AND top reviewers AND editors – all participated in this protest. This shows that at least some people cannot be bought with a ‘editor’ star in their profile. When I posted my entry, I expected to lose some trustees. I had 3090 at the time. I probably did lose some who were disappointed by me but gained a few as well.
I believe that almost everyone in the protest wants the best for this site, which is why they deleted their reviews afterwards. Did it impact the site’s usability? Yes, for 3 days. Did it change something? Yes – so far.
Suggestions
Epinions’ CEO announced that they want to build up the trust of their members again. Time will show what they will do. Putting the distribution of income share on a fixed date would be a very good measure. I believe that everyone could live with 0 base royalties if you knew on the first of each month, there will be some income share (no matter how little). Other non-monetary rewards are ‘top reviewer’ and ‘editor’ titles. Supposedly also given out on a monthly basis, this process should be fully automated as well.
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Epinions chat
Round about once a month, senior management at epinions.com gets together in a chat that is open to the public. They use Digichat and the technology works fine. Moderated chat, the peons can submit questions and if you ask the right question, then it gets answered. I’ve been to some of those chats and I felt like in a press conference – fairly passive and not sure if I can believe it all. You know, in the chat, I feel as if I sat at the TV and watch a politician. I submitted a question once but it didn’t get answered.
The good thing about the chat is that it is there – at least they try to convey some information. The bad thing is how the chat feels (to me at least). A more lively chat would help building trust between the company and the writers. I guess at this point it’s better than nothing.
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A problem that epinions.com has to fight
If you have a moment, please visit this page http://info.alexa.com/data/details/reviews?url=epinions.com/
There you can read what the main problem of epinions is. One reviewer there sums it up as:
“Epinions has one big problem... they pay the reviewers - and so you have hundreds of peopel who never owned the product mocking up reviews to get the money. [..]
The longer the review the less likely it was written by someone who actually bought the product”
Maybe this problem is doing to disappear now since base royalties are removed and income share seems to be distributed fairly smart. (More about that below)
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How to write reviews
Keep in mind that this is just my opinion. I’m not saying that anyone should agree or even follow.
In order to succeed, epinions has to be useful to the consumer. Now there is a kind of community standard that well-written detailed reviews get a high rating and short reviews get a low rating. The result is that there are some reviews written from the heart but not detailed bloat receiving low ratings and on the other hand long, boring reviews written with the intent to get high ratings and $$$, no passion whatsoever and probably less useful to a real consumer.
Here are two examples of reviews that I wrote.
June, 11th, 2001
Latest news on Telocity – the NO-service DSL (San Diego)
http://www.epinions.com/content_26680266372
I wrote that review with passion. I was mad at the company. It’s basically a complaint about how bad that company is. It is a relatively short review. It got quite a few low ratings and people asked me in emails and comments to add “More information about the product and service” or “What is DSL – please explain and I rerate”.
You know what? I do not care. I answered a few comments and emails but I did not update the review.
I was kind of disappointed and next day I wrote another review. I thought: “They want boring detailed bloat? Ok, I give them boring detailed bloat.”
I wrote a boring review on a boring monitor.
June, 12th, 2001
A Sony for life (or 10 years)
http://www.epinions.com/content_26748030596
I don’t care for that monitor. I could write such a review every single day. I put in everything I could think of including how Trinitron technology works. As expected this review got a pretty much clean VH rating (412 ratings), no complaints.
I won’t go so far to say that the monitor review is bad, but it contains bloat. The Trinitron explanation and the list of compliance with relevant norms were solely added to achieve some serious length.
Now guess how the Income Share looked like next month?
$20 Income Share for the DSL review
$1.80 Income Share for the monitor review
I believe that 75% to 90% the reviews on this site were written for the money. Most of my own reviews were written for the money. I felt really passionate about:
- Amsterdam (travel review)
- Billy Jack (movie review)
- Some of those German islands (travel reviews)
- Telocity DSL review
- Epinions :-) I never wrote a CC review “for monetary reasons”
- Some banks (Personal finance reviews)
- Firebird (car review)
Oh well, as I look through my old reviews - maybe I had more passion than I thought. I’m not going to bore you with a long list now. My absolute low-downs on lack of passion were some monitor reviews, a “Laptop Case” or a “Toaster” review.
Due to lack of passion or lack of products available to review, I have seriously slowed down this summer. If we all would write only on topics that we feel strongly about, maybe the site would become more useful for consumers. Some people just join the site, write one single review from their heart - not caring for the $$$ and never come back.
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How to rate reviews
This is in the spirit of the previous paragraph – Passion! Personal experience!
From now on, when I see a review that does not show passion nor indicate that the writer actually owns the product, I will rate it “Helpful” at best. Reviews that just describe a product but do not judge it, will be flat NOT HELPFUL.
There are reviewers who have reviewed dozens of cars or dozens of DVD players. No matter how detailed those reviews are, I will no longer give them highest ratings. “Helpful” at best!
Some of these reviewer artists have been on my block list since the block feature was made available, and I don’t care that epinions does reward some of them even with a “Top Reviewer” title.
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Category specific problems
- Media
While people buy books and see movies, it seems that there’s not much money to be made by epinions.com. People who review for money will stop writing here since it’s not paying off. The remaining people will do it out of true passion, hopefully.
- Electronics, Computer, Cars
The problem is that most people have only one computer, one car etc. and they cannot constantly buy new products to review them. Yet there is a high demand in this category for reviews of the very latest products. Who cares what I have to say about the 2000 model Firebird now as the 2002 is sold? This category has the greatest earning potential but also potential for abuse – reviews written to earn income share. The other problem is that epinions needs to permanently update their product database - which they fail to.
- Beauty, Household
I saw this week a ~ 1000 word review on a hairspray! It contained everything imaginable. Who needs to read that? Yes, I rated it VH according to the community standards – it was “well-written” but very boring.
I suspect that many reviews here are bloated just to ensure high ratings. Who cares for the consumer?
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Is epinions going under?
The partner program
When I wrote my part in the EBD write-off, my main concern was the dropped partner program. This affects only a few people who put work in it.
“If you don’t grow, then you shrink”
It’s never a good sign when a company removes features from a product simply because they are not able to sustain it. (Quote from epinions: “We discontinue .. because of recurring bugs”)
I can see that they need to save money and cannot pay for the affiliate program but I liked it to have a customized header that integrated with my own web site.
Less traffic
I predict that with no base royalties, the member traffic will shrink. No more reason “I read you – you read me”. That is actually good for the company. The higher the non-member % of traffic is, the higher the click-through rates on “buy-here” etc will be. (Hopefully.)
There are already less reviews written than e.g. a year ago. I’ve said it before: In 10/2000 there were 2000 fresh reviews a day. Now there are 450 fresh reviews a day. Hopefully they are the better ones.
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My Hopes (Summary)
- With no more base royalties, people will write because of passion, not for money.
- Income share will reward passionate, truly helpful reviews.
- The company is able to rebuild trust between site members and management.
- I continue to be excited about this site.
Thanks for reading and best wishes to all of you, no matter how you continue on this site.
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Epinions.com ID:
ptiemann
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 - Top 10 |
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Member: Peter Tiemann
Location: Capitola, CA
Reviews written: 260
Trusted by: 2793 members
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