Breaking Free
How to Quit Your Job and Start Your Own Business
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: BuyersVote.com
In: Business Ideas| Success Stories| Updates By: Brian Armstrong
22 Apr 2009The announcement is finally here! In the last week I launched BuyersVote.com.
Here is the description from the about page which describes the site:
=====================================
Friends help you make buying decisions every day…
This phone is great!
That mechanic is a crook!
We know we can trust our friends (unlike advertisements) because they aren’t selling us anything.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could ask a friend about EVERY product you wanted to buy before you bought it?
Wouldn’t it be even better if dozens or hundreds of people could tell you about their experience with it and any related products too? One person might be biased or get it wrong but surely if you could AVERAGE the reviews of hundreds of people you could know which was best.
The power is now in YOUR hands (the consumer)…
The internet has enabled consumers from all around the world to COLLABORATE – sharing their collective experiences to let each other know what is good and what is bad.
Online reviews are nothing new of course. You can find a great book on Amazon, a great hotel on TripAdvisor, and a great digital camera on CNet – all from reading opinions of real people who have already used the product.
But what about the myriad of other products that DON’T have a dedicated, trusted, portal on the web?
If you aren’t searching for a major consumer good on a website you already trust, you’ll often get back junk pages full of affiliate links, biased reviews by one person, or endless forum posts that you don’t have time to read and summarize.
What if there was a site that was community editable – just like Wikipedia – so that ANYBODY and EVERYBODY could create reviews for any product they wanted?
And what if it was completely free?
What I have just described of course is BuyersVote.com – a community editable site where anybody can create and edit pages for any product, service, or company in the world.
A trusted, portal site can now be formed for niche products, mainstream products, local products, individual service providers and anything else that people or companies want to rate and review.
Imagine…
- Choosing a bank, credit card, or cell phone company based on thousands of votes from their real customers
- Doctors and hospitals making more informed purchases of medical equipment
- Accountants collaborating to choose the right software
- Finding the right lawyer, wedding planner, plumber, or realtor in your neighborhood based on reviews from actual customers
- Companies being able to choose the right vendors and suppliers based on past performance
- Mothers rating private schools
- Motorcycle riders rating biker bars
- Exotic pet lovers describing their favorite species of tarantula
The sky is really the limit here.
People and businesses have millions of different interests, needs, and areas of expertise. Now they have a place to read and create trusted reviews on ANY topic they’d like.
They could even end up creating a way to rate things which aren’t products (charities, blogs, speakers at a conference, etc). That is part of the beauty – BuyersVote so open ended that I have no idea WHAT people will do with it and that is great.
YOU are in control on this site, YOU are the editor, and YOU can create whatever you’d like.
Quality Control And Reputation
We’ve also taken things one step further than Wikipedia by building a reputation system – a quality control if you will – right into BuyersVote.
When you make an edit or post a review on BuyersVote, other users will be able mark your contributions as helpful or not. Over time, you will build a reputation on BuyersVote (the little number by your username) which is an indication of how much the community trusts you.
This is great for a few reasons. First, it means that the community is “self-policing”. If a malicious user tries to deface a page or insert their opinion where facts should go (a major problem on Wikipedia), the community will vote them down and their editing privileges will be removed.
Second, it means that well trusted contributors will gain new privileges and will essentially be full administrators of BuyersVote. They will be able to delete pages, flag them, re-categorize them, combine them, etc.
Consumer Reports, Wikipedia, and the Better Business Bureau In One
One of the most exciting parts about this website for me personally is the idea that it can not only help good companies rise to the top and be rewarded – but also that it will ensure bad companies get punished and won’t be able to keep taking advantage of new consumers.
Almost everyone has had a BAD experience at some point in their life with a product or service. Maybe it was a piece of junk and they refused to honor the warranty. Maybe it was an individual or company who took your money and never delivered the result.
Taking them to court can be a hassle, so you might be stuck – only able to warn your friends about it and share your story. The company might lose one or two new customers (depending on how many friends you have) but chances are they wouldn’t feel the effect and would go right on doing the same thing to other people.
But what if you had several MILLION “friends” who could now read about your experience online? What if when people typed the company’s name into Google your review came up at the top? I bet that shady company might start to listen.
The next time a company or individual treats your poorly, do the world a favor and make a PUBLIC RECORD of your experience on BuyersVote.com. Let the world know how you were treated and you might just save someone else the same fate!
If we all work together we can actually eliminate unethical companies by making this information freely available. Bad companies will either have to clean up their act or go out of business once it’s public knowledge how bad they really are.
In fact, I suggest that when creating a page on BuyersVote you use the individual or company’s REAL NAME. If their name is John Smith and they are a realtor, make a page for them called “John Smith (Realtor)”. If they are a company, write their actual company name.
Why? Because when someone does a Google search for this person or company’s name, you want your review to come up first telling the world to beware.
Final Thoughts…
By no means should BuyersVote ONLY be a negative place for bad reviews. It should also be a place to highlight the BEST in any field and help people make the right buying decisions.
The vast majority of people and companies in the world are good and I hope the site will reflect that. Overall I’m very excited for what BuyersVote.com will become.
Remember that…
- BuyersVote is a “wiki” just like Wikipedia – meaning that anyone can create or edit a page on this site
- Anyone can write a review on this site
- BuyersVote is 100% FREE
- The next time you need some information on what to buy, do a search for it here first
- If you have a specific interest or experience (good or bad) with a certain product, service, or company – create a page for it
Thank you so much, and I’ll see you around BuyersVote!
Brian Armstrong
=====================================
I’ll be describing more about the site over the next few weeks on this blog such as:
- How I developed it quickly using Ruby on Rails and plugins
- How I got the web hosting for free
- The design
- The philosophy behind easy logins
- And more…
But for right now please do me a favor and click here to view the site.
Then please try adding a page to the site. It can be on any product or service you have used recently, perhaps an area you have a particular interest or specialized knowledge in, or someone you’ve had a particularly good/bad experience with.
There is no login required to add a page, but if you want to login you can do so with an existing account you already have (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Aol, etc).
Please post feedback in the comments below on…
- Your first impression (whether bad or good)
- What is confusing or unclear about it
- What you like, what you dislike
Thank you so much!
Brian Armstrong
30 Responses
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Breaking Free is a blog for people who'd like to quit their 9-to-5, start their own business, and achieve financial freedom. It's written by web-entrepreneur Brian Armstrong. You can read more here »
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Johnbob
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:14 am
brian i tried to make an insiteful page about a certain 190 proof grain alcohol but it asked me to “Type The Letters In The Image:” and then there was no immage.
Brian Armstrong
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Really? You don’t see the captcha image at the bottom here:
http://buyersvote.com/pages/new
It seems to be working. if it doesn’t show up for others please let me know.
Johnbob
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:22 am
nope. still no good. i will email you a screen shot. Been following the UT stats tho….seems like lots of new tutors and matches are occuring?? How many people are using the new payment system now?
Brian Armstrong
April 24th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Getting about 1 invoice processed through the site per day. Adoption hasn’t been as fast as I’d wanted, but fixed a big bug today that was causing people problems paying online, so hopefully this will grow over time. I’ll see where it is after 2 months.
Also, you were right about the image. Internet Explorer 7 was causing the problem. I used http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/ to test it and got it working. Thanks!
matt
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:20 am
Brian,
Great idea. I was able to successfully create a page and a review. A little feedback… Without reading any how-to/directions on the site, I wanted to give the product a vote of around a 3 or 4. It took me a few tries (deleted my first review–frustrating!) before I figured out it was only a vote-up or vote-down system. My only suggestion is to make this more intuitive.
Overall well done!
Brian Armstrong
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Agreed Matt, I’m getting feedback from some people that this is the most confusing part. Here is part of an email conversation with a friend:
===
Yeah there is a trade off between how much precision people need or want.
The 5 star approach is common (Amazon, etc). People at StumbleUpon do a thumbs up thumbs down which is really 2 options. Digg does 1 option (up only if you like it).
There is good research that too many options causes inaction and indecision, which is why I avoided the 5 star approach. I think either you like it or don’t.
What if I changed it to a %. like “60% of people liked this”
The only reason I avoided that is it gives a “false accuracy” perception. Something with 61% is implied to be better on the site than something with 60% when really, with perhaps a dozen votes, the statistical significance isn’t there to make that claim.
However, if it’s more clear to people than doing 6 out of 10 it might be worth it.
===
What do people think? Obviously the x average out of 10 and “vote up or vote down with the arrows metaphor isn’t clear enough.
Thoughts?
matt
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
I actually like the simplicity of the two options. It just took me a few trys of repeatedly clicking the up or down arrow to understand that it wasn’t changing the number. I agree though–normally you like something or you don’t.
The only drawback to this is if I thought something was just okay (maybe a 5 or 6), then if I’m the first voter I vote up and it gets a perfect 10. I wouldn’t like seeing that. Maybe it would be better if the average rating is only displayed after 3-5 votes have been made?
Brian Armstrong
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Hmm…yeah, the up/down is simple, but disconnected from the one out of ten.
I’m still thinking about it. Something needs to change though.
Brian Armstrong
April 24th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
I’m leaning toward a “5 star” system (even if they aren’t actual stars, just 5 points).
I think people will be more familiar with this and also, there is a 1-to-1 correlation between the score and your vote. You vote 1 t 5, the average is 1 to 5.
www.ManuelZeh.de
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Congratulations man, that’s brilliant. Greetings from Sao Paulo Brazil!
-Manuel.
Brian Armstrong
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Gracias! I’ll be joining you (sort of) soon :)
College Town Menus (CTM)
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Good job Brian! You have some neat features in it! Again, did you do the coding? How long did it take for you to program all of this? How do you control your online item “inventory” – there’s no way you automatically enter in all of the products, do you have an automatic feed or what? I’m interested to see how this develops! Post your traffic patterns as it develops!!
Brian Armstrong
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Hi there, yes coded it up myself, it actually took just a week now that I’m getting better at Ruby on Rails and there are so many plugins which give you all the functionality.
The inventory is all going to be generated by users. I don’t have any plans to import or scrape data from other sites. Will do on the traffic patterns!
Jeff Yang
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
I love the idea, I’ll try adding a page soon, hopefully it will obtain the critical mass necessary to make it useful.
By the way, you missed an “n” in word “announcement” in the title of the post and in the url of the post.
Brian Armstrong
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Excellent Jeff, thanks! And thanks for the spelling correction, I seem to have a lot of those :)
Thanks for adding a page. I’ll check it out.
Nick
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I think your idea is briliant. I think you will be very busy for at least a year, to make it work (so not too many 4 hour weeks for you ;)).
In England, we have a reknowned website called http://www.which.co.uk It is a site where they test loads of things. They charge roughly $12 a month for the subscription and they have thousands of members, so it shows people will pay for that kind of good advice.
All the best. Kind regards, Nick :)
Brian Armstrong
April 24th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Interesting, reminds of “consumer reports” here in the U.S.
I think you’re right, it will take a while to scale up to critical mass.
Jason
April 24th, 2009 at 12:31 am
Fantastic idea Brian! Hopefully it’ll take off in a big way and we’ll be able to benefit from it over here in Japan.
Best of luck with the road ahead.
- Jason
Brian Armstrong
April 24th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Yep, I would like it to be an international effort as well. Perhaps subdomains for translations just like wikipedia?
en.buyersvote.com ?
Chris Guthrie
April 24th, 2009 at 3:05 am
Dang it only took you a week to code it? Either way product review sites are the way to go and this has the potential to be huge. If I were you, I’d spend a ton of time promoting it so that you can be the biggest… it’ll only be a matter of time before copycats arrive.
Advice on the contributors section:
Why don’t you show what makes up the contribution score instead of just a number? If they’re a big contributor, just build in some code to page out the info after 50 or something…
Brian Armstrong
April 24th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Hey Chris….good idea. I was thinking of adding this to the user’s account so they could see where their reputation is coming from, but making it public might be a good idea as well.
I’ll have to look into that after I fix the voting system.
Brian Armstrong
April 24th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
I’ve been looking through this to find a better review system:
http://ui-patterns.com/collection/rate-content
What do ya’ll think?
Imee
April 27th, 2009 at 5:43 am
I think this is a fantastic project you’ve created. You’ve made the point clear–it’s easier to trust someone and his/her opinions if you can relate to them… someone more “real.”
Gordie Rogers
April 28th, 2009 at 1:30 am
Great job, Brian.
You have seemed to have got on top of those bugs. I signed up smoothly, created a new page and then wrote a review for Coca Cola Zero and voted for it all on the first go. It passed the Gordie simplicity test.
If I can use your site, anybody can.
Gordie Rogers
April 28th, 2009 at 1:39 am
I have one suggestion.
When one goes into categories and clicks on one, you only see the the description. I was looking for the review I had written and after about ten seconds I worked out that I had to click on the title of the review to read the actual review.
Perhaps add “Description” title and a “Click here to read reviews” link.
Cheers.
Brian Armstrong
May 2nd, 2009 at 1:47 am
Thanks for the feedback that’s a good idea, and thanks for creating a page – apparently lots of people liked your review! :)
Romy Maxwell
May 5th, 2009 at 2:45 am
First post (found you on railsforum, post about numeric?) I’ll stay on topic and save the “omg u r a geniuz” for a private exchange ;)
This idea is great, no doubt, and I have worked on something similar in the past (which actually morphed into something cool of its own). However, the one thing I’ve always dreaded was the chicken-n-egg of “you need tons of reviews to be useful, but you can’t have tons of reviews without tons of users”.
The conclusion I’ve come to is that this seeding process will be far, far easier if you limit your reviews to geographic regions (and an online ‘region’).
In other words, I don’t really give a rat’s ass about Neil’s guitar shop in Australia (no offense Neil), as I live in LA. Think about how craigslist started — it would have never worked had it been a nationwide catch-all for all advertisements.
Some things are just meant to be localized. Another good example is Yelp, and on that note I think calling yourself a cross between Yelp (or epinions in its heyday) and Wikipedia is simpler than the trio you’ve chosen. Who reads consumer reports these days, anyway ? ;)
Stay focused.
Brian Armstrong
May 9th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Hey Romy,
great tips and thanks! I think you’re right about localizing it.
I have a plan to deal with this where basically people will be able to turn on a sitewide “filter” to only show things in a certain geographic area. StackOverflow does this similar filtering (not for geographic areas though).
After doing one site with geographic subdomains like CragsList, I’m not eager to repeat the experience :) It was annoying to manage.
But I think your main point is spot on – thanks for the kind words and talk soon!
Oh yeah, and you’re right about the chicken-egg thing too. I’ve been thinking about trying to partner with someone who has a big list to send to (Tim Ferriss?) which might help.