Wize Blog

Good reviews or bad reviews: which are more compelling?

At Wize, we spend a lot of time thinking about customer reviews and expert reviews, how they can be most beneficial to customers, and how businesses use them to drive traffic to their websites, stores, offices, etc. Generally, we agree that manufacturers and restaurant owners prefer it when they get good reviews. But what drives traffic to online retailers who sell products they don't manufacture? Are customers more compelled to read positive reviews or negative ones?

Our working theory, based on our own experience, is that bad reviews are a lot more compelling than good ones. For example, I know that most people love their iPods. But finding the person who hates theirs can be very revealing. Is the negative review good for Apple? Maybe not. But is it good for  Amazon.com?

We'd love to hear what you think. Do you tend to read more positive reviews or more negative ones? Why?

Fewer search results simplify product research

Search engines providers and online retail portals have been working to shorten the amount of time and effort spent on Internet searches since the Internet began, innovating clever methods of retrieving the most relevant information as quickly as possible. Google’s link-based search results model, for example, replaced conventional search queries. Emerging as yet another paradigm, we’ve seen the rise of social bookmaking sites like digg and del.icio.us that ask users to sort and rank content.

Regardless of the means, the goal of the medium is to present consumers/users with exactly the information queried as quickly as possible, while simultaneously ensuring that it is of tremendous depth and quality. The immediate access to a large amount of relative information is what makes Wize unique in the online shopping and consumer research field. For a comparison, take a look at the results of some popular product searches run though Google.com, Become.com and Wize.com.

DVD Players	12,000,000	6,378,048	201
iPod	391,000,000	27,422,454	41
Camcorders	165,000,000	7,693,230	242
Coffee Grinders	4,010,000	248,580	48
Air Conditioners	11,900,000	571,056	38
Disclaimer: All data pulled from their respective web sites as of 10/07/06.

By providing fewer search results Wize makes it easier to get started on product research by presenting immediate access to relevant information. In traditional product research methods the information is there, but a user has to work harder (and expend more time) to find it.

What sets Wize apart is that we tap the human element, not bots, to provide fewer “smart” results to minimize the search process. Fewer results to comb through means consumers receive exactly the requested information as a starting point; from there, Wize allows access to scores of reviews (more than 500 on some products).

Wize makes it easy to conduct product research by presenting customers with exactly the content they want, immediately.

Wize is Del.icio.us

Over the weekend Wize topped the Del.icio.us hot list (see the screenshot below). It’s exhilarating because it’s a telling sign that there’s momentum building behind our site, and that people are ready to embrace the idea of collective wisdom as an e-shopping tool.

Our secret sauce is keeping our product ranking process clear, transparent, and unbiased, and continuing the ongoing effort of streamlining our review aggregation processes—all the while squeezing every iota of accuracy out of our Wize Rank product review system. For a great springboard and/or first time Wize experience, check out the Wize100, it’s a great example of what we’re all about.

I harbor a secret fetish:

I harbor a secret fetish: I love well designed things. So when given the opportunity to work with an e-commerce outfit whose philosophy revolves around connecting people with the best consumer products available, I jumped at the opportunity (this is my 4th day).

The Wize 100 page really gets at the power of our Wize Rank -- it's a list of the best products out there, specifically designed for people who love well-built, thoughtful and enduring things. The list is dynamic, so it can change, but it doesn't change too much or too quickly.

Last week I used the Wize 100 list to the find the perfect juicer (the Breville 800JEXL), and after using it to make juice out of just about everything I could find in my fridge (grape leaf juice, anyone?), I was sold on its quality and on the information I was able to get using Wize.com.

More than 17 thousand products are reviewed on Wize.com by nearly 700,000 people. As of today there are 31 products on the Wize 100 list. Check it out.

Collective wisdom

To get a Wize Rank, we pull together all the reviews we can find on a particular product, crunch them in our own formula, and generate a number from 0 to 100. The number that we come up with isn't "massaged" or tinkered with -- the collective wisdom of thousands of people from thousands of sources is not to be messed with. This means that Wize Rank includes not just features, design, and product reliability, but also warranty information, customer service, repair, and anything else that customers factor into purchase decisions. Implicit in this is the fact that value (real or perceived) also includes cost.

Last week a friend told me that he was disappointed that his headphones did not have a higher Wize Rank. "The only thing bad about them," he said, "is that the manufacturer has bad customer service."

But customer service matters to us, and it matters to the customers who care enough to let their views be known on Amazon.com, Epinions.com, and anywhere else. So Wize Rank includes all of this information, unedited. Because we trust collective wisdom. And because before we buy a product that can't be repaired, we want to know.

Wize.com Eases Product Research & Drives Collective Wisdom

Wize.com launched a new website in response to a demonstrated need from consumers for “Collective Wisdom.”

Every day, more than 18 million people use the Internet to search for product information. Wize.com aggregates both user and expert reviews to provide consumers with the information they need to decide whether a particular product is worth further consideration.

Wize also offers its proprietary Wize Rank™ - an algorithm that uses the review data to determine the public's collective wisdom, good or bad, for each product.

Let's say you want to buy an MP3 player but aren't sure which one to buy; you can search for MP3 players on Wize.com and review the search results listed in order of Wize Rank.

The top MP3 players are:

Creative Labs ZEN Vision (30 GB) Media Player 214 of 244 user reviews are positive. 5 of 5 expert reviews used in Wize Rank were positive.

Apple iPod nano (1 GB) MP3 Player 107 of 128 user reviews are positive. 5 of 5 expert reviews used in Wize Rank were positive.

With the collective wisdom present on Wize.com, customers can see how one MP3 player compares to another from both the customers’ and experts’ viewpoints.

Read the full press release about the new website launch.

Shopping vs. Researching

Do you distinguish between shopping and researching when you’re looking for a product online? In our first usability test every participant said they use the internet for product research, but only 45% mentioned shopping online. We have continued to discuss this idea in the office as we work on refining the site, specifically discussing how our customers want to be directed to vendor sites.

Clearly customers need to know what they are looking for – researching – before making a purchase, but the line between research and shopping can be a slippery slope. Each of us in the office can recall at least one snap purchase made after someone told us about a product, we read a favorable review, or the price was too good to pass up. We’ve gone from the consideration phase to the “what have I done?” phase without even realizing what happened.

In a similar vein, last year Yahoo! released a beta tool (http://mindset.research.yahoo.com) that allows customers to sort their search results between shopping and researching by moving a slider bar. They called it “intent driven search”… check it out.

Adding products to Wize.com

People have been writing, asking us to add new product categories, wondering why specific products aren’t on the site. Thanks for writing -- here’s the deal:

Wize.com doesn’t aim to have every product available on the web or the most products. Other sites can do that faster and better than we can. The value of Wize.com is that we find the best, most relevant products in each category to help people make great decisions quickly. Here’s how we do it:

• We identify websites that are great sources of reviews and ratings
• We identify relevant reviews and ratings on those websites
• We use that information to generate a Wize Rank and present it all on Wize.com

Collective wisdom doesn’t work without critical mass, so if a product doesn’t have multiple reviews, we don’t give it a Wize Rank and we don’t show it on the site.

Our team of analysts is constantly searching the web for products and review sources. We’re aggressively adding content, but even more aggressively sticking to our mission to provide quality information that you can trust. Large appliances, hardware, cars, toys, wine, shoes – all of these things our on our list and more. Keep sending us your suggestions. We’ll add them when they’re ready.

We've Launched! (Beta)

Product research is the fifth most popular use for the internet in the U.S. More than 18 million people do it every single day. The research gathered online is responsible for more than 65+% of all retail purchases online and in stores (www.pewinternet.org).

But here's the most amazing part: it's being done wrong. Simply put, using search engines for product research just doesn't work.

Wize.com offers a new, better way to do product research on the web. First, we collect customer and expert ratings and reviews from the best independent sources on the web. Next, we distill all of those ratings and reviews into a single number, a Wize Rank, letting customers know which are the best products out there. Finally, once you've selected the product that's right for you, we display relevant ads to help you find the right retailers, prices, and deals. Simple, but effective.

Over the next few weeks, I'll use this blog to write about Wize Rank, collective wisdom, the paradox of choice, and other methods and philosophies that drive what we do at Wize. We believe we've created something unique and powerful, something that helps online researchers find great products faster and without frustration. Please take a look around and let us know what you think.