Social shopping site CrowdStorm has launched a beta trial for their new site revision. It’s been seven months in the making. CrowdStorm always had a social bent, with users supplying the listings and reviews for products listed on the site. However, the new version is a significant upgrade that incorporates content pulled from around the web with relevant reviews intelligently selected from other users. You can sign up for the trial here.
Before, the site was entirely dependent on user submitted products and written reviews. The new site adds a host of other review sources, such as expert reviews (Cnet, TrustedReview, Stuff …), buyer guides, video links, and q&a sessions. Users can bookmark their own relevant product review content on the site. It also brings in new price search engines such as Amazon, eBay, and Shopping.com.
CrowdStorm hopes not only pull content from the web, but also let you take your content with you. You can take your reviews and post them to other blogs, review sites, or online stores. The hope is that CrowdStorm will function as a hub for review content instead of a walled garden.
The more significant change is how it takes advantage of user generated content. CrowdStorm has a new algorithm that ranks user reviews in aggregate and for each user based on the quality of reviews, the similarity between users, and social network relationships. The idea being that similar users closely linked to you have more relevant and trustworthy reviews. The algorithm can also generate a relevant crowd of experts you can ask questions.
It’s very similar to what VibeAgent is doing with their travel review system. Analyzing the social network graph has become a sensible way to deal with the potential spammyness of user generated sites and I expect to see it incorporated into even more products.
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Sounds interesting, if a little hectic-sounding name. Agoraphobics beware.
Very interesting ideas…something I could use for my deals and coupons site.
Respectfully — a proposed compromise, Nick et al? Link the company name to Crunchbase, followed by a link to the domain in parenthesis, e.g.
CrowdStorm (crowdstorm.com)
It would have the result you want, and the user experience everyone else wants.
I’ve been lucky enough to have a peek at the new version - it looks great, really innovative. Some challenge to cope with taking different types of review data/content from different sources and presenting it in a usable, compelling format. Looking forward to the finished version
I’m always suspect of sites like this that tackle “niches” like shopping. Looking at the example PNG, not sure how this site would help me buy a digital camera better than a digital camera specific site such as dpreview.com, or help me with home theatre better than avsforum. And if I want to know what people are buying, I can look at amazon’s bestsellers. What’s the need being serviced here? Is the aggregation of reviews really that much more helpful than searching for them?
I wouldn’t necessarily think of shopping as niche… as an interest or a topic…
Wasn’t a big fan of the initial site, but you’ve convinced me to take a second glance.
“Is the aggregation of reviews really that much more helpful than searching for them?”
Review aggregation can be useful. Aggregating data from only the better review sites, giving percentage of good vs bad reviews, summarizing the reviews and other stuff - all can add a little extra value.
Also, when you’re thinking of more mainstream users - most of them don’t have a clue which niche review sites exist anyway and just want one quick place to find quality verdicts from experts and users. Combine that with our “ask the crowd” feature and we can tailor responses for more personal questions such as “which digital camera would you recommend for underwater use?”.
You could argue that at one end a small % of online shoppers are savvy and technical enough to get involved on sites like dpreview and invest in the forums (small, small %), and that the other end has the large % of online shoppers just typing things into google and getting various non-specific results. Crowdstorm sits right in the middle.
In reply to Austin W’s reply about aggregators - the point with them is that they save you from searching. It’s conveniance than anything else. Whilst i think it’s a fair point that you could just log on to specialist sites with experts to give you an opinion - this is just the opinion of one person. sites like the crowdstorm one should theoretically give you the opinion of many people - perhaps linking you to reviews from like - minded souls. Personally, I’d listen to a mate who understood my needs and had a similar budget much more than i would an expert who gets the product for free and has different needs.