Love To Write Or Read Reviews?
Viewpoints.com Is Ultimate
Online Destination
New Site Lets People Post Reviews Across Most Comprehensive Range of
Categories Anywhere; Innovative Profiling/Feedback System Fosters Highly
Personal & Reputable Reviews
CHICAGO (Business Wire EON/PRWEB ) May 23, 2007 --
Opinions are like noses, they say—everyone has
one. And for those of us who have way more than one (opinions, that is,
not noses), there’s now an online home just
for you.
Viewpoints.com, a recently-debuted
Web site, gives people who enjoy reading or writing reviews a one-stop
outlet for topics ranging from laptops to hotels, blenders, even
hospitals and schools. Nearly 700 categories, in fact, make
Viewpoints.com the most comprehensive “citizen
review” resource on the Web.
“Through more than 100 hours of interviews
with people who like the review process, we discovered two major sources
of frustration,” said Matt Moog, founder and
CEO of Viewpoints.com. “First, reviewers are
frustrated that there is no single web site where they can build their
reputation by reviewing products and services across a broad set of
categories. Second, while most people favor user reviews, they would
like to know more about the reviewers.”
Moog, former chief executive of Q Interactive (formerly CoolSavings), a
leading interactive marketing services company, realized the need for
such a site back in 2005 when his father was facing serious health
issues.
“I wanted to find the best specialist in the
world for my father, and was shocked at the lack of information online.
I was forced to work the phones for recommendations,”
he recalled. “It occurred to me that the
Internet fell short on reviews for topics that aren’t
in some way product-related.” He later
resolved to build a site where people could review anything and
everything—a true community for the sharing
of thoughts and opinions.
“Reviewers are not one dimensional—one
day they might be moved to write a book review, the next day a hotel
review, and the next a review of their favorite restaurant,”
Moog observed. “Why should they have to go to
three different web sites to do that?”
Need Evident
As Moog and his team researched the online review marketplace, they
found that more than 85 percent of consumers use the Web to purchase
everything from airline tickets to automobiles. Thirty percent of all
Internet users have rated a product, person or service in some way. Yet
no single site had emerged as the most trusted and credible source of
reviews. Obviously, they concluded, there was a need for an
all-inclusive site that was well organized, highly regarded, and
strongly promoted.
Based on the credibility he gained at Q Interactive, an $80 million
company twice recognized by Deloitte & Touche as one of the fastest
growing companies in the U.S., Moog was able to attract $5 million in
Series A funding from a stellar group of angel investors.
Financial backers in Viewpoints.com include successful CEOs and
entrepreneurs such as Joe Mansueto, Founder & CEO of Morningstar Inc.
and Michael Alter, President of The Alter Group. Prominent members of
the Chicago venture capital community also participated such as J.B.
Pritzker, CEO of The Pritzker Group; Matt McCall, co-founder and
Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson & Portage Venture Partners;
and Lon Chow, General Partner with Apex Venture Partners.
Moog was also able to attract a world-class management team, a testament
to the strength of Chicago’s vibrant
technology and interactive community. Among the firm’s
executives are Jolie Fleming and Tim Brennan, both former Senior Vice
Presidents at Q Interactive, and Leon Chism, former Orbitz Chief
Internet Architect.
Community Tools
Because people who enjoy writing and reading reviews desire a sense of
community as much as they do competent and trusted advice,
Viewpoints.com has taken a fresh approach to the rating and review
process. Reviewers are asked to create unique “I
Am” tags that tell others about themselves as
those traits relate to the item they are reviewing.
Someone who loves cruises might call themselves a “cruise
addict” or a frequent golfer might call
themselves an “avid golfer”.
The tags are searchable, enabling readers to both filter reviews and
find individuals with similar interests. “Viewpoints.com
helps reviewers express themselves more completely and in doing so,
gives readers a much better sense of who the reviewer is,”
Moog states.
In addition to establishing reviewers as individuals, the site also lets
users rate the quality and value of the reviews they read. Readers can
click on “GoodPoint”
at the bottom of a helpful review; writers who are active based on their
tenure, number of published reviews, and multiple helpful ratings, can
move up in the recognition system, with the top echelon of reviewers
entering the Publisher’s Circle. To foster a
user community, Viewpoints Network created “friends”
and “fans”. “Friends”
are people that the user likes and trusts, while “fans”
are people who report they like the reviewer’s
writing.
“Architecture of Participation”
The site, which launched on April 30th, is off
to a fast start, generating participation from reviewers and users
alike. The company will soon debut a major advertising campaign to
promote the site; once it does, Moog says, it expects to get much larger
very quickly.
“We believe Viewpoints.com lies at the
intersection of ‘wide’
and ‘deep’,”
he states. “This is an exciting concept that
leverages what our chief of technology likes to call ‘the
architecture of participation’.
The Internet is the most democratic medium ever for sharing, empowering,
connecting and informing. We hope Viewpoints.com helps lead the way.”
See the original story at: http://eon.businesswire.com/releases/viewpoints/review/prweb528179.htm
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