Stumbleupon is now giving users access to tons of reviews and insight by its users if you use their toolbar. This got me thinking about review sites in general, and sites like Yelp.com and say Yahoo movie reviews, which I think is a great part of Yahoo’s site. Yahoo movie reviews gives you a good list of both user and critic reviews and then a letter grade. Plus you can get times and locations via your zip code. And I’m sure there are a number of other sites and ways to get similar information for movies that I just don’t know about. Then there’s RottenTomatoes.com, which gives you a ranking of the current movies in the theaters. All of this user information goes a long ways, beyond any algorithm let’s say, or more in conjunction with it the review becomes valuable, which is what StumbleUpon is doing, adding insight to search results. But Google has reviews themselves, I don’t know if people know about them or use them. I think Google has a lot information that they’ve yet to share and will further enhance the search experience. The thing is, the more info you give to Google or say Amazon, more things you buy the better they can suggest other books or products you like.Â
What does this all do? I think it makes search more interesting when you have user information along side of it. But it’s who the reviews from that is more important. How do you reference this? If this person said this or like this movie and they say this about this movie, then I will probably like it too. If this reviewer on Amazon also likes this book or author and gave a positive review about his book, then I’ll buy it. How do you incorporate the review aspect into your site?