Posts Tagged ‘ratings sites’

Google Deploys Recommendation Engine With Hotpot

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

Yesterday evening, Google announced their new service, Hotpot, a mashup that combines social media with local info and check-in services. This marks yet another surge forward in the local arena that Google has made recently, along with the deployment of Google Place Search, launch of Google Tags and Boost ads, and more.

I haven’t kicked the tires yet on Hotpot via mobile, but I can see the services it offers via web:

Google Hotpot

Hotpot encourages you to rate businesses, and connect with your friends to get recommendations for places to try out.

While the service appears fairly robust and graphically well-designed, it’s unclear to me so far just how much traction it may get. (more…)

Making Businesses of Negativity

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

I decided a long time ago to avoid pursuing business/career options which involved more negative ways of making money. The philosophy first came to me in college when I observed how lucrative — and vile — the local businesses were which operated towing services for our campus. (My university openly and purposefully sold far fewer parking permits than there were students who needed to use them, and then received a percentage of funds back from the towing companies which charged huge towing fines.)

Complaints - A Bully Horn

In the internet world I work in, I try to help companies in ranking well in search engines when people search for their keywords, and I also try to help those companies when they have reputation management problems. One type of problem that I feel is increasingly targeting companies and individuals are sites which are set up to specifically encourage people to complain about companies or even make false accusations against them.

I’m not talking about all sites which enable people to write ratings and reviews. I love sites like Zagat, and TripAdvisor, which can be really helpful in finding good restaurants and hotels. I was pleased to find ratings of doctors (see RateMDs, Vitals.com & HealthGrades) and dentists (see DR.Oogle) when I was seeking an oral surgeon recently on a business trip, and I see attorney ratings, too (Avvo).

(more…)