Online Opinions

Epinions.com is a non-profit web community established to serve as an easy way to share knowledge and opinions between people with similar interests. The fact that this site is not really selling anything makes it a more pure forum because it is not driven by economic motivations, versus other web sites that profit from selling a product. Having an independent service to guide customers to good products and warn them against lemons will be one of the most important enablers of ecommerce because it creates an automatic ethos.

Who To Trust?

This brings up the very important question of who to trust. With so many different opinions available at one source, the task of deciding who is trustworthy can become quite difficult. To help with this dilemma, Epinions.com offers its members an area to tell a little about themselves. This short bio reveals the amount of time the person has been a member, gender, favorite URLs and a short description of their interests. Along with this description is what is called a web of trust.

The web of trust includes a listing of all the members that this individual has deemed trustworthy. It also includes a list of all the members who trust this individual. Although this can be a useful way to tell where a person stands within the community it doesn’t necessarily give credit to what they have to say. This is a tool often used by politicians and advertisers in an effort to create a favorable ethos of something without actually dealing with any issues. This is what is referred to as namesake acknowledgment. For example, the endorsement of Wheaties by Michael Jordan doesn’t make the cereal taste good. It does mean that when I’m in the grocery store I will be more likely to remember Wheaties cereal.

Another feature of Epinion.com is an area devoted to the critiquing of all of the opinions written by the member. This includes the subject of their opinion and how they ranked whatever it was they were talking about. It lists how many visits each article has received and a five level Epinion Rating ranging from very useful to not useful. With this user feedback on all their opinions, people will be reluctant to contribute low-quality reviews to the service, ensuring a higher standard.

Incentives

Finally, an interesting twist that Epinion.com offers those who contribute to its database is the ability to earn a micropayment every time someone reads one of their reviews. This motivates people to write valuable reviews, not just to gain a high reputation rating, but also to earn money. With this potential to earn money the likelihood of people writing reviews about very popular topics increase. This also increases the motivation to write popular reviews on these topics.
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