The importance of trust

As passé as it is it may sound, I think it’s worth mentioning here: as more information continues to become digitized, and as digital information continues to outpace traditional mediums, the challenge becomes not gaining access to information, but finding ways to quickly obtain and sort though relevant results. The volume of information is no longer the limiting factor, but instead the availability of a person’s time. Who wants to spend hours combing through product and user reviews from scores of different sources to find the all-around best DVD player? People want to find what they’re looking for in the least amount of time possible. The question of whom we trust to provide us with our information becomes the real lynch pin.

People organize themselves around sources of information they trust; online communities of friends that share similar interests and news organizations/media outlets that have earned reader/viewer credibility are two examples. Wize is placing the issues of trust, credibility and transparency at the center of our web offering by presenting our users with a portal that provides up-to-date, unbiased, and clear product reviews. Credibility is something that is earned, and so unlike other shopping sites Wize doesn’t preferentially rank products according to agreements with online retailers or advertisers—doing so would ultimately erode our credibility. Hundreds of thousands of customer reviews—almost 750,000—are accurately weighed against each other, Internet buzz, and the reviews of experts to provide users an idea of the true quality of their product choices. As web 2.0 e-commerce models continue to be test driven in various shapes, forms and configurations, we think that the foundation Wize is built upon will continue to endure and thrive because of the trust we place in a large number of diverse consumers, and because of the trust they place in us to accurately provide unbiased information.