Epinions
Encyclopedia
Epinions.com is a general consumer review site that was established in 1999. Epinions was acquired by Shopping.com
(known as DealTime.com at the time of the acquisition) in 2003, which in turn was acquired by Ebay
in 2005. At Epinions, visitors can read reviews about a variety of items to help them decide on a purchase or they can join for free and begin writing reviews that may earn them money and recognition, according to the site's FAQ
s.
shows or movies
. There is no maximum opinion length, but the minimum opinion length has changed several times. There are two types of reviews: Express Reviews which are 20-199 words long and Regular reviews which are 200 words or more. The company has stated that this allows shoppers to quickly research multiple viewpoints and then read detailed information as they narrow their buying choices.
Although Express and Regular reviews serve different purposes, there is no standard format to structuring the information contained in a review.
Epinions members can write reviews of consumer products ranging from automobiles to thumb tacks, media (including music, books and movies), to children's toys. Epinions pioneered this format in 1999 and has since been copied by other consumer review sites in the same vein, such as ReviewCentre, Ciao.com and Dooyoo. There is also a section called the Writer's Corner where contributors may write about almost anything. To post a review, members first rate the product or service on a rating scale
from 1 to 5 stars. For several years now, all opinions also come with brief Pro and Con sections, and a summary called "The Bottom Line".
In 2004, Epinions installed message boards for community members to discuss specific categories of product or ask general questions or express feelings of Epinions as a site. To further bring the community of writers together and to keep management "in touch" with their needs Epinions has established "Meet and Greets" where a team of the Epinions staff travel to many different regions of the US to spend time with members in an informal atmosphere.
Epinions.com originally had both an Eroyalties plan and an Income Share Plan. The Eroyalties plan paid writers per read of their opinion. The payment per read has steadily decreased and finally was discontinued.
Epinions still pays Income Share, which rewards reviewers for how much help they've given users in deciding to purchase products. Epinions even claims that you are also rewarded for helping visitors that do not purchase an item. It is not possible to verify either claim, as the Income Share Formula is secret.
Another income aspect, which ended in 2001 was referrals, where users were paid for getting people to sign up. Since the end of the dot-com era, payment dwindled and then plateaued to a level that is much lower than the earlier days and non-existent for many users. Certain categories, such as electronics, pay better than other categories, such as movies.
In 2003 Epinions began offering bonuses and gifts or running special Sweepstakes for their active members during the December Holiday seasons. Since January '04 Epinions also implemented a monthly Sweepstakes with prizes of eRoyalties credits (Cash that can be withdrawn from a members account) and/or gift certificates going to the month's top winners.
All members can rate opinions by others as Very Helpful (VH), Helpful (H), Somewhat Helpful (SH), Not Helpful, (NH) or Off Topic (OT). Express Opinions are rated Show (S) or Don't Show (DS).
Members can also decide to "trust" or "block" (formerly known as "distrust") each other. All the trust and block relationships interact and form a hierarchy known as the Web of Trust. This Web of Trust (WOT) combines with rating to determine in what order opinions are shown to readers. The order members see depends on their own ratings and their own trust and block choices. The order a visitor sees is determined by a default list of reviews ordered by the number and strength of user rates applied to each review. Reviews by Top Reviewers, TR, and Category Leads (see below) are given preferential placement at or near the top of each review list. The WOT formula is secret.
Some members have titles that designate certain roles, status, privileges or benefits. These roles, the titles and the way members are selected for these have changed more than once. Since 2002 the main titles are Advisor, Top Reviewer and Category Lead. The Advisors have greater rating weight in their categories and access to an additional rating, Most Helpful (MH). The Top Reviewers have their reviews given an improved placement.
The most powerful title is that of Category Lead: a Category Lead enjoys all the Advisor and Top Reviewer benefits, and chooses the Advisors and Top Reviewers for a category. A Category Lead can even add new products and services to the epinions.com database for others to review. Category Leads get a stipend from Epinions.com for the extra duties and responsibilities.
is not abuse-proof, but the company maintains a Customer Care unit should a dispute arise.
Early in 2000 the San Francisco Chronicle interviewed co-founder Mike Speiser and early member Brian Koller, with Speiser claiming the system prevents advertorials from getting exposure, but Koller saying: "There is a lot of 'You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,' and mutual admiration societies. You recommend me and mine, I’ll do the same for you."
Since then, the site's reputation for quality content has been praised multiple times. Epinions was compared favorably with Consumer Reports
by a New England newspaper publishing group in 2007.http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070520/OPINION/705200334/-1/rss02
The site was also recognized in 2007 by the "Internet for Beginners" writer for About.com
as one of the web's 10 most valuable web sites. Calling the site "wonderful", "Internet for Beginners" Editor Paul Gil wrote, "This is a truly valuable resource for the smart consumer."
http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/readerpicks/ss/useful_sites_7.htm. The praise was echoed by a CBS television affiliate in California that named Epinions its "Site of the Day"http://www.kcoy.com/content/netnews/sotd.aspx
Shopping.com
Shopping.com is a price comparison service owned by eBay and operates websites in USA, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia. Shopping.com started out with the name DealTime.com which still operates as a related, but otherwise separate website....
(known as DealTime.com at the time of the acquisition) in 2003, which in turn was acquired by Ebay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
in 2005. At Epinions, visitors can read reviews about a variety of items to help them decide on a purchase or they can join for free and begin writing reviews that may earn them money and recognition, according to the site's FAQ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. "FAQ" is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than an acronym, but an acronym form does exist. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual...
s.
Reviews
To add reviews, contributors register for free and begin writing their own personal views, including personal satisfactions or dissatisfactions. The website's aim is to give future customers a preview of what they can expect should they decide to buy a certain product, use a certain company or watch certain televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
shows or movies
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
. There is no maximum opinion length, but the minimum opinion length has changed several times. There are two types of reviews: Express Reviews which are 20-199 words long and Regular reviews which are 200 words or more. The company has stated that this allows shoppers to quickly research multiple viewpoints and then read detailed information as they narrow their buying choices.
Although Express and Regular reviews serve different purposes, there is no standard format to structuring the information contained in a review.
Epinions members can write reviews of consumer products ranging from automobiles to thumb tacks, media (including music, books and movies), to children's toys. Epinions pioneered this format in 1999 and has since been copied by other consumer review sites in the same vein, such as ReviewCentre, Ciao.com and Dooyoo. There is also a section called the Writer's Corner where contributors may write about almost anything. To post a review, members first rate the product or service on a rating scale
Rating scale
A rating scale is a set of categories designed to elicit information about a quantitative or a qualitative attribute. In the social sciences, common examples are the Likert scale and 1-10 rating scales in which a person selects the number which is considered to reflect the perceived quality of a...
from 1 to 5 stars. For several years now, all opinions also come with brief Pro and Con sections, and a summary called "The Bottom Line".
In 2004, Epinions installed message boards for community members to discuss specific categories of product or ask general questions or express feelings of Epinions as a site. To further bring the community of writers together and to keep management "in touch" with their needs Epinions has established "Meet and Greets" where a team of the Epinions staff travel to many different regions of the US to spend time with members in an informal atmosphere.
Epinions.com originally had both an Eroyalties plan and an Income Share Plan. The Eroyalties plan paid writers per read of their opinion. The payment per read has steadily decreased and finally was discontinued.
Epinions still pays Income Share, which rewards reviewers for how much help they've given users in deciding to purchase products. Epinions even claims that you are also rewarded for helping visitors that do not purchase an item. It is not possible to verify either claim, as the Income Share Formula is secret.
Another income aspect, which ended in 2001 was referrals, where users were paid for getting people to sign up. Since the end of the dot-com era, payment dwindled and then plateaued to a level that is much lower than the earlier days and non-existent for many users. Certain categories, such as electronics, pay better than other categories, such as movies.
In 2003 Epinions began offering bonuses and gifts or running special Sweepstakes for their active members during the December Holiday seasons. Since January '04 Epinions also implemented a monthly Sweepstakes with prizes of eRoyalties credits (Cash that can be withdrawn from a members account) and/or gift certificates going to the month's top winners.
All members can rate opinions by others as Very Helpful (VH), Helpful (H), Somewhat Helpful (SH), Not Helpful, (NH) or Off Topic (OT). Express Opinions are rated Show (S) or Don't Show (DS).
Members can also decide to "trust" or "block" (formerly known as "distrust") each other. All the trust and block relationships interact and form a hierarchy known as the Web of Trust. This Web of Trust (WOT) combines with rating to determine in what order opinions are shown to readers. The order members see depends on their own ratings and their own trust and block choices. The order a visitor sees is determined by a default list of reviews ordered by the number and strength of user rates applied to each review. Reviews by Top Reviewers, TR, and Category Leads (see below) are given preferential placement at or near the top of each review list. The WOT formula is secret.
Some members have titles that designate certain roles, status, privileges or benefits. These roles, the titles and the way members are selected for these have changed more than once. Since 2002 the main titles are Advisor, Top Reviewer and Category Lead. The Advisors have greater rating weight in their categories and access to an additional rating, Most Helpful (MH). The Top Reviewers have their reviews given an improved placement.
The most powerful title is that of Category Lead: a Category Lead enjoys all the Advisor and Top Reviewer benefits, and chooses the Advisors and Top Reviewers for a category. A Category Lead can even add new products and services to the epinions.com database for others to review. Category Leads get a stipend from Epinions.com for the extra duties and responsibilities.
Reputation culture
Epinions.com’s reputation systemReputation system
A reputation system computes and publishes reputation scores for a set of objects within a community or domain, based on a collection of opinions that other entities hold about the objects...
is not abuse-proof, but the company maintains a Customer Care unit should a dispute arise.
Early in 2000 the San Francisco Chronicle interviewed co-founder Mike Speiser and early member Brian Koller, with Speiser claiming the system prevents advertorials from getting exposure, but Koller saying: "There is a lot of 'You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,' and mutual admiration societies. You recommend me and mine, I’ll do the same for you."
Since then, the site's reputation for quality content has been praised multiple times. Epinions was compared favorably with Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports is an American magazine published monthly by Consumers Union since 1936. It publishes reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory. It also publishes cleaning and general buying guides...
by a New England newspaper publishing group in 2007.http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070520/OPINION/705200334/-1/rss02
The site was also recognized in 2007 by the "Internet for Beginners" writer for About.com
About.com
About.com is an online source for original information and advice. It is written in English, and is aimed primarily at North Americans. It is owned by The New York Times Company....
as one of the web's 10 most valuable web sites. Calling the site "wonderful", "Internet for Beginners" Editor Paul Gil wrote, "This is a truly valuable resource for the smart consumer."
http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/readerpicks/ss/useful_sites_7.htm. The praise was echoed by a CBS television affiliate in California that named Epinions its "Site of the Day"http://www.kcoy.com/content/netnews/sotd.aspx
See also
- Reputation systemReputation systemA reputation system computes and publishes reputation scores for a set of objects within a community or domain, based on a collection of opinions that other entities hold about the objects...
- Reputation managementReputation managementReputation management , also known as directory management, is the process of tracking an entity's actions and other entities' opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report creating a feedback loop. All entities involved are generally people, but...
- Amazon.com#Website Amazon product reviews