Consumer review site RateItAll exposes its millions of consumer opinions to third party developers via an API.
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) January 13, 2009 -- RateItAll, a leading consumer review network that allows people to find and share reviews on any topic, has today announced the public availability of an Application Programming Interface (API) that allows RateItAll partners to quickly and easily implement consumer reviews on their own websites.
RateItAll API users are able to draw from RateItAll's millions of consumer opinions for use on their own site, as well promote their own content on RateItAll.com.
Our API is fully read / write "Our API is fully read / write," said RateItAll CTO Mathew Spolin. "It's an easy and free way for any website to jump start consumer reviews for their own community."
In addition to displaying RateItAll reviews and ratings on their own sites, API partners are able to promote their own content to the more than one million people that visit RateItAll.com each month. For companies looking to increase traffic to their website, the RateItAll API is an opportunity to gain distribution by putting their content to work.
RateItAll's API launch partners include online video company LongTail Video and distributed shopping cart Cartfly.
"We chose RateItAll as a consumer review partner because of the flexibility of their API and their distribution might," said Kurt Collins, Vice President of Business Development of distributed shopping cart Cartfly. "We needed a reviews engine that could handle both products and merchants, and RateItAll's willingness to promote our merchants' storefronts to their large community made it an easy decision."
More than 1.1M people visited RateItAll in December according to third party analytics company Quantcast.
About RateItAll:
Based in San Francisco, RateItAll is a consumer review network where visitors can find and share reviews on virtually any topic. All of the site's content is available for syndication via widgets and an API, and RateItAll members share in the advertising revenue associated with their reviews. RateItAll's mission is to help people help others by sharing trusted reviews of whatever inspires them.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
RateItAll Retools with a Social Take on Reviews
Leading Consumer Review Network Brings Custom News Feeds, Compatibility Quizzes and Unlimited Topics to Consumer Reviews.
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) January 13, 2009 -- RateItAll , a consumer review network and web service that allows people to find and share reviews on any topic, today launched a new website designed to make the sharing of consumer reviews more fun, more personalized and more social.
The company is highlighting three aspects of its new site as particularly innovative for the consumer review space:
This release incorporates the best of these customization and discovery tools into a consumer review environment.
the ability to customize a news feed of reviews to your specific interests and network of friends
the opportunity to meet people who share your tastes via RateItAll's compatibility quizzes
the ability to quickly and easily add anything reviewable to RateItAll's database
Central to RateItAll's news feed is the ability for each member to create their own custom reviews feed, tuned to their friend networks and interests. For example, a movie buff might set up her news feed to display the movie recommendations of her friends, or might simply follow the keyword "movies," which would insert movie reviews from RateItAll's network into their news feed. Or a new parent might choose to follow top ranked reviewers in RateItAll's "baby" category, as well as subscribing to baby related keywords such as "stroller" or "diapers."
The new release is at the junction of two major trends, consumer reviews and social networking. Last week, Nielson Online published the results from a survey of 1,000 online shoppers in the U.S. in which 71 percent agreed that consumer reviews make them more comfortable that they are buying the right product. And social networking techniques have made it easier and popular for people to share their opinions with their network of friends.
"Over the last two years, the social web has taken giant strides forward in the way content is discovered and consumed," said RateItAll co-founder and CEO Lawrence Coburn. "This release incorporates the best of these customization and discovery tools into a consumer review environment."
RateItAll also offers hundreds of reviews-based compatibility quizzes designed to match like-minded reviewers in topics such as movies, music, food, beer, travel, politics and more. Participants rate 10 to 20 items within a particular topic and check their compatibility score with friends or others from the RateItAll network. The quizzes are available on the RateItAll site and as Facebook and MySpace applications.
"Between the range of things to rate on the site and the compatibility quizzes, there's always something fun to do," said Ed King, a top RateItAll reviewer and former political aide now living in British Columbia. "Where else can you rate Apple products, best Thanksgiving foods and baseball nicknames?"
Since its launch, RateItAll has offered the broadest choice of topics from which to write reviews. Not only can members review consumer products, they can also review politicians, travel destinations, characters from television programs and much more.
This RateItAll release brings the site closer to its goal of being a review service for anything that inspires its members. A prominent "Write a Review" link on every page allows members to write a review of anything, starting a conversation with RateItAll's 1 million-plus monthly unique visitors. (More than 1.1M people visited RateItAll in December, 2008 according to third-party analytics company Quantcast.)
Businesses can also add their products or services to RateItAll's database.
"The ability to add literally anything to RateItAll's database - a hostel in Bangkok, a flavor of Gatorade, a controversial blog, a new product - has big implications for marketers and businesses wishing to leverage social media to distribute their message," said Chris Winfield, CEO of social media marketing agency 10e20 in New York. "Creating a listing on RateItAll is an easy first step for online marketers when launching a new business or product."
About RateItAll:
Based in San Francisco, RateItAll (www.rateitall.com) is a consumer review network where visitors can find and share reviews on virtually any topic. All of the site's content is available for syndication via widgets and an API (api.rateitall.com), and RateItAll members share in the advertising revenue associated with their reviews. RateItAll's mission is to help people help others by sharing trusted reviews of whatever inspires them. Click through for a complete company FAQ
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) January 13, 2009 -- RateItAll , a consumer review network and web service that allows people to find and share reviews on any topic, today launched a new website designed to make the sharing of consumer reviews more fun, more personalized and more social.
The company is highlighting three aspects of its new site as particularly innovative for the consumer review space:
This release incorporates the best of these customization and discovery tools into a consumer review environment.
the ability to customize a news feed of reviews to your specific interests and network of friends
the opportunity to meet people who share your tastes via RateItAll's compatibility quizzes
the ability to quickly and easily add anything reviewable to RateItAll's database
Central to RateItAll's news feed is the ability for each member to create their own custom reviews feed, tuned to their friend networks and interests. For example, a movie buff might set up her news feed to display the movie recommendations of her friends, or might simply follow the keyword "movies," which would insert movie reviews from RateItAll's network into their news feed. Or a new parent might choose to follow top ranked reviewers in RateItAll's "baby" category, as well as subscribing to baby related keywords such as "stroller" or "diapers."
The new release is at the junction of two major trends, consumer reviews and social networking. Last week, Nielson Online published the results from a survey of 1,000 online shoppers in the U.S. in which 71 percent agreed that consumer reviews make them more comfortable that they are buying the right product. And social networking techniques have made it easier and popular for people to share their opinions with their network of friends.
"Over the last two years, the social web has taken giant strides forward in the way content is discovered and consumed," said RateItAll co-founder and CEO Lawrence Coburn. "This release incorporates the best of these customization and discovery tools into a consumer review environment."
RateItAll also offers hundreds of reviews-based compatibility quizzes designed to match like-minded reviewers in topics such as movies, music, food, beer, travel, politics and more. Participants rate 10 to 20 items within a particular topic and check their compatibility score with friends or others from the RateItAll network. The quizzes are available on the RateItAll site and as Facebook and MySpace applications.
"Between the range of things to rate on the site and the compatibility quizzes, there's always something fun to do," said Ed King, a top RateItAll reviewer and former political aide now living in British Columbia. "Where else can you rate Apple products, best Thanksgiving foods and baseball nicknames?"
Since its launch, RateItAll has offered the broadest choice of topics from which to write reviews. Not only can members review consumer products, they can also review politicians, travel destinations, characters from television programs and much more.
This RateItAll release brings the site closer to its goal of being a review service for anything that inspires its members. A prominent "Write a Review" link on every page allows members to write a review of anything, starting a conversation with RateItAll's 1 million-plus monthly unique visitors. (More than 1.1M people visited RateItAll in December, 2008 according to third-party analytics company Quantcast.)
Businesses can also add their products or services to RateItAll's database.
"The ability to add literally anything to RateItAll's database - a hostel in Bangkok, a flavor of Gatorade, a controversial blog, a new product - has big implications for marketers and businesses wishing to leverage social media to distribute their message," said Chris Winfield, CEO of social media marketing agency 10e20 in New York. "Creating a listing on RateItAll is an easy first step for online marketers when launching a new business or product."
About RateItAll:
Based in San Francisco, RateItAll (www.rateitall.com) is a consumer review network where visitors can find and share reviews on virtually any topic. All of the site's content is available for syndication via widgets and an API (api.rateitall.com), and RateItAll members share in the advertising revenue associated with their reviews. RateItAll's mission is to help people help others by sharing trusted reviews of whatever inspires them. Click through for a complete company FAQ
RateItAll Launches V3: Consumer Reviews And Beyond
On the Web, reviews are the voices of the consumers. Despite a multi-million dollars advertising campaign, if a product is not well-acclaimed on consumer-opinions Websites, sales will never tear the roof off. It's the democratic aspect of the Web.
Consumer reviews' Websites have empowered the consumer in many ways: it catapulted businesses into an era of transparency and attention to customers' satisfaction. On the other hand, consumer reviews Websites have never truly empowered the reviewers that provide the juice to their Websites: reviews belong to the site's owners, no internal structure makes it easy for reviewers to meet one another, and no consumer reviews Website opens up its database to third-party developers.
RateItAll launches its V3 version of RateItAll today. RateItAll first launched its service in 1999, and after almost 10 years of community development, the startup got funds to power a fresh new start.
In a few words (in order not to repeat what the video already mentions), V3 has 5 main new components:
1. A fresh new design.
2. The site is now a hybrid between Facebook and Delicious, allowing you to follow people, new category items, and keywords. All the items appear on your user's homepage.
3. Creating a new review became even simpler and more accessible.
4. The social gaming dimension that matches users' tastes together is more prominent with the new design.
5. A full read/write API is now accessible for third-party developers. Developers can pull any item they wish from the RateItAll's database, and the rev share model can also transit through the RIA's programmable infrastructure. Developers can also use the API to power their own custom-built review widgets (even though it's a little heavy on the javascript so far).
By being innovative, RateItAll gets back in the competition of consumer reviews providers. Other service providers should find an obvious interest in powering their Websites with the RateItAll technology: fully-customizable content, two-way information infrastructure, revenue plan, widgets, and a vibrant community on RateItAll that's been crunching reviews for the past ten years.
Consumer reviews' Websites have empowered the consumer in many ways: it catapulted businesses into an era of transparency and attention to customers' satisfaction. On the other hand, consumer reviews Websites have never truly empowered the reviewers that provide the juice to their Websites: reviews belong to the site's owners, no internal structure makes it easy for reviewers to meet one another, and no consumer reviews Website opens up its database to third-party developers.
RateItAll launches its V3 version of RateItAll today. RateItAll first launched its service in 1999, and after almost 10 years of community development, the startup got funds to power a fresh new start.
In a few words (in order not to repeat what the video already mentions), V3 has 5 main new components:
1. A fresh new design.
2. The site is now a hybrid between Facebook and Delicious, allowing you to follow people, new category items, and keywords. All the items appear on your user's homepage.
3. Creating a new review became even simpler and more accessible.
4. The social gaming dimension that matches users' tastes together is more prominent with the new design.
5. A full read/write API is now accessible for third-party developers. Developers can pull any item they wish from the RateItAll's database, and the rev share model can also transit through the RIA's programmable infrastructure. Developers can also use the API to power their own custom-built review widgets (even though it's a little heavy on the javascript so far).
By being innovative, RateItAll gets back in the competition of consumer reviews providers. Other service providers should find an obvious interest in powering their Websites with the RateItAll technology: fully-customizable content, two-way information infrastructure, revenue plan, widgets, and a vibrant community on RateItAll that's been crunching reviews for the past ten years.
What Do You Think? RateItAll Rolls Out Additional Social Features
When we last spent time with RateItAll - roughly 18 months ago - the service had just released a Flash-based widget designed to help extend its reach to blogs. Today, we're checking back in with the company as it rolls out a new look-and-feel, accompanied by a number of new features designed to facilitate recommendations on practically any topic imaginable - while increasing the social aspects of the site for its growing user base.
As any aficionado of the social Web knows, one of the biggest benefits of social networking is the opportunity to access hundreds - if not thousands - of opinions with a couple of keystrokes.
Any number of sites have made a business of focusing on a singular topic - like movies, music, or restaurants - and helping users manage social recommendations within that niche. Some sites, like Yelp, have chosen to cover a broader range of topics, like retail outlets that cover anything from restaurants to shopping. But few have taken social recommendations to the extent of RateItAll, a site that eschews the niche focus in favor of giving its users the option of rating anything and everything.
Now, RateItAll has released a number of new features to increase the social interaction among its users, including a new feed format which allows users to follow streams of reviews based on keywords and compatibility quizzes - similar to the ever-prevalent Facebook quizzes - which allow RateItAll users to meet other users with similar interests. In short, the latest version of RateItAll is designed to help people find their peers - and to share their reviews with people who share similar interests.
As any aficionado of the social Web knows, one of the biggest benefits of social networking is the opportunity to access hundreds - if not thousands - of opinions with a couple of keystrokes.
Any number of sites have made a business of focusing on a singular topic - like movies, music, or restaurants - and helping users manage social recommendations within that niche. Some sites, like Yelp, have chosen to cover a broader range of topics, like retail outlets that cover anything from restaurants to shopping. But few have taken social recommendations to the extent of RateItAll, a site that eschews the niche focus in favor of giving its users the option of rating anything and everything.
Now, RateItAll has released a number of new features to increase the social interaction among its users, including a new feed format which allows users to follow streams of reviews based on keywords and compatibility quizzes - similar to the ever-prevalent Facebook quizzes - which allow RateItAll users to meet other users with similar interests. In short, the latest version of RateItAll is designed to help people find their peers - and to share their reviews with people who share similar interests.
Review site RateItAll gets more social
RateItAll, the site that lets users review anything and everything (and shares its ad revenue with reviewers), unveiled its redesign today. The overhaul includes new social networking features that overlay its regular reviews.
The biggest addition in this area is the option to take a “compatibility quiz,” which means rating a bunch of items in a particular category, be it fruits or Web 2.0 companies. Then the site gives you a list of other users with similar responses, and you can “follow” their reviews or connect to them as a friend. (As a bonus, you’ve just added a bunch of ratings to RateItAll’s database.) The other big social feature is a news feed, which can show new ratings and reviews based on either specific categories or specific reviewers you’ve chosen to follow.
The redesign’s features also include the ability to add any item to the database, and an application programming interface (API) that allows other sites to access RateItAll’s ratings and reviews. That makes it easy to add consumer ratings to your site, while giving RateItAll half of the ad revenue and increasing its exposure around the web.
Co-founder Lawrence Coburn says he’s convinced that compared to more focused review sites like Yelp, “radically horizontal will win over time.” I’m not sure the San Francisco company will ever overtake Yelp, but that doesn’t mean it won’t find a healthy audience — in fact, it already has, with 1.3 million visits in December, up 44 percent from June.
RateItAll has raised $1.4 million in financing.
The biggest addition in this area is the option to take a “compatibility quiz,” which means rating a bunch of items in a particular category, be it fruits or Web 2.0 companies. Then the site gives you a list of other users with similar responses, and you can “follow” their reviews or connect to them as a friend. (As a bonus, you’ve just added a bunch of ratings to RateItAll’s database.) The other big social feature is a news feed, which can show new ratings and reviews based on either specific categories or specific reviewers you’ve chosen to follow.
The redesign’s features also include the ability to add any item to the database, and an application programming interface (API) that allows other sites to access RateItAll’s ratings and reviews. That makes it easy to add consumer ratings to your site, while giving RateItAll half of the ad revenue and increasing its exposure around the web.
Co-founder Lawrence Coburn says he’s convinced that compared to more focused review sites like Yelp, “radically horizontal will win over time.” I’m not sure the San Francisco company will ever overtake Yelp, but that doesn’t mean it won’t find a healthy audience — in fact, it already has, with 1.3 million visits in December, up 44 percent from June.
RateItAll has raised $1.4 million in financing.
Review Community Site RateItAll Gets A Revamp, Releases API
RateItAll, the consumer rating and review network that dubs itself the “distributed Yelp for everything”, is getting a make-over and a bunch of new social features today, including review feeds and product compatibility quizzes.
RateItAll, initially launched way back in 1999, shut down in 2001 after the dotcom bust, and subsequently relaunched in 2007. It allows users to rate topics that range anywhere from music to travel to food. The site currently boasts 350,000+ members, and both Quantcast and Competeshow a nice growth pattern in traffic (the company self-reports 1.3 million visits last month, growth of 44% since June 2008 and a total number of 11.3 million unique visitors overall last year).
The new look and fresh features have been in the works for the past 5 months, and development started after the San Francisco-based company raised an initial round of funding of up to $1.4 million in September last year. You can now create a review stream which is very similar to Facebook’s news feed but for reviews by category / keyword or by personal network. The service also added a social compatibility layer dubbed ‘Quizzes’ which lets you compare your ratings and review with those from your friends or other members of the RateItAll community.
The most welcome additions to the service are the read/write API (the company also features RSS feeds and widgets for social networks and blogs) and the ‘global add’ feature that lets users put up any product, business, brand, person and/or place to the RateItAll database for discussion by its user base.
RateItAll pays reviewers 50% as part of a revenue-sharing program based on Google AdSense.
RateItAll, initially launched way back in 1999, shut down in 2001 after the dotcom bust, and subsequently relaunched in 2007. It allows users to rate topics that range anywhere from music to travel to food. The site currently boasts 350,000+ members, and both Quantcast and Competeshow a nice growth pattern in traffic (the company self-reports 1.3 million visits last month, growth of 44% since June 2008 and a total number of 11.3 million unique visitors overall last year).
The new look and fresh features have been in the works for the past 5 months, and development started after the San Francisco-based company raised an initial round of funding of up to $1.4 million in September last year. You can now create a review stream which is very similar to Facebook’s news feed but for reviews by category / keyword or by personal network. The service also added a social compatibility layer dubbed ‘Quizzes’ which lets you compare your ratings and review with those from your friends or other members of the RateItAll community.
The most welcome additions to the service are the read/write API (the company also features RSS feeds and widgets for social networks and blogs) and the ‘global add’ feature that lets users put up any product, business, brand, person and/or place to the RateItAll database for discussion by its user base.
RateItAll pays reviewers 50% as part of a revenue-sharing program based on Google AdSense.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
iSteps Co-invensts in RATE IT ALL in SFO
RateItAll, a site that describes itself as a “distributed Yelp for everything” has closed an $800k round of funding led by Accelerator Ventures, JAIC America, Pacific I&T Ventures, and Eric Di Benedetto. The site allows users to rate topics that range from travel to politics to athletes (it shies away from product and restaurant reviews that are seen on sites like Yelp and epinions). RateItAll initially launched in in 1999, but was effectively shut down in 2001, where it lay dormant until its relaunch in 2007.
Since then, the site has done quite well - In 2007 it managed to generate $190k in revenue with a single full-time employee (the team has now grown to four). The site is somewhat unique because of its revenue-sharing program, which gives users 50% of the advertising revenue generated by the reviews they’ve written.
Over the past year RateItAll has grown to a million monthly uniques and has been seeing explosive growth in user interaction, going from about 10,000 new ratings in February to 70,000 in May, much of which was driven by its MySpace application. Of course, it still has a long ways to go - there is no shortage of review sites on the web, and many of them have far more content than RateItAll.
Since then, the site has done quite well - In 2007 it managed to generate $190k in revenue with a single full-time employee (the team has now grown to four). The site is somewhat unique because of its revenue-sharing program, which gives users 50% of the advertising revenue generated by the reviews they’ve written.
Over the past year RateItAll has grown to a million monthly uniques and has been seeing explosive growth in user interaction, going from about 10,000 new ratings in February to 70,000 in May, much of which was driven by its MySpace application. Of course, it still has a long ways to go - there is no shortage of review sites on the web, and many of them have far more content than RateItAll.
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