As Swedal says, it's a flawed concept. User-generated reviews are full of shill reviews. TripAdvisor, Ebay and Amazon are targets for this, but you can expect it anywhere where there is money involved and reputations at stake.
LOL. I just saw this post. Pretty interesting idea. Could be something. People do like to complain more than they do complement. I think if would be dumb for restaurants to pay to get off...they can't control what people say, some restaurants would be paying everyday lol, plus, the site owner would be dumb for doing that, they will lose all their content!
Always Unique and Stupid Ideas always Make Great Impact in DP... There is no Exception..But personally i think Good stuff and Bad Idea..
What I think it may have meant is this is the kind of post which will generate activity so the post is good while the idea for the site is not so good. At least that is what I got out of it.
Thanks for the clarification, I guess that makes more sense. But how do they figure this would be a bad idea?
Building a directory based on a negative! Not a good idea as no one would actually want to be listed in there. Also when your looking for a place to go eat what is the question you ask? Do you ask where is a good place to eat or where is a bad place to eat? I ask where is a good place to eat as most probably do. So you have a site where no one wants to be listed and visitors won't come to find resources. Who then uses it? An occassional visitor that stumbles across it for a laugh to see if anyplace they know of is listed there. There is huge potential for abuse from competitors. Why not submit all your competitors to the site?
I disagree. They pay for the service and the food. The 'critics 'get paid' to be serviced and eat food, therefore, I tend to take the word of the generalized public over what some fat snob has to say. (awe, fatty didn't get a napkin, so he slams the restaurant..yea whatever)
I disagree Bruce. Negativity can sometimes make leaps and bounds over the average and ordinary. Why do people watch reality shows? I don't think its because that's all thats on. I think it's because they are sitting at the edge of their seat waiting for some drama to unfold. (just a little ANALogy )
I agree that negativity can sometimes bring people in droves - I could just be focusing on too many of the problems I see with it. Plus, I don't watch reality tv. How do you see it working long term? Barring some of the negatives I really think the only thing which would draw people would be the curiousity factor. That is not really sustainable imo. On the flip side it sure is generating a little debate here....
Long term: people enjoy hilarity. As to whether or not it could sustain the same level of review/critic put in a humorous manner is another story. Because, just like any passing phase, things die down eventually. Let me ask you; If you see something hilariously funny, do you ever give mention and/or pass it on to another? Does it ever reoccur to you? If yes to any of those questions, did/do you find yourself going back to whatever it was? Did you re-review it? Did you look for 'more' similar types of things on the site you're on once you went back to it? There is a lot to consider with it all. Think end user, not web master. Think what drives the average ordinary web user. So so many variables to consider when trying to drive something like this. Mind boggling to say the least. (God knows how I've kept my sanity through the years)
Just yesterday I saw a site I thought was funny. robpongi.com with just some idiotic humor in it. I probably spent 45 minutes that I did not have surfing around that site and I will probably go back. Like most things I guess we will have to wait and see what happens with it.
See what I mean It's all about how the individual owner would go about preserving it. Glad to see my point along with questions were deemed valid from a perspective other than my own
Very good thread going on here… I see both the good and bad, but as I think about it, the only bad comes in the form of "restaurant owners" are the ones that wouldn't want to be on here, however, that doesn't stop people from posting their opinions of these places. I think this site could easily become a coupon or "redeem yourself" type site for restaurant owners that want to say "Hey we don't have bad food!†And give incentives to come back and try again" or something along those lines. Then not only could users come for amusement, but to find better than normal incentives to try these restaurants...
Something along these lines is exactly what the site is missing imo. Right now it is not monetized and how would one do that? Charge to allow someone to place a bad review up? I don't think so. Or would they charge to have restaurants taken off the list? That would not work either... I am not a big fan of adsense, but I guess it could be added for restaraunt type ads. Charging restaurants to place their coupons or something along those lines might work if the site could build up enough traffic to warrant it.
I would definitely not recommend charging to post, or charge to remove. It's really going to be all about the traffic. Where ever there is a mass audience, your bound to be able to get money from someone! LOL.
excellent idea. Now, to add onto this, I would then 'charge' a submission fee to allow them to upload a redemption coupon You see, it's not the directory owners fault that it got there. It was the restaurant's poor service and/or food which got them there. So I would only see the owner as a mediating factor between the owners and customers whereas he is just trying to provide a means so that all can be satisfied in the end. Rob