Telonu (Tell-on-you, get it?) is a new website that invites you to “Rave, Rant, and Rate” about your school and business in the hopes of helping inform prospective applicants as well as providing co-workers a place to gossip anonymously. The startup is by no means the first to offer users a place to detail the inner workings of their current occupation (in fact, many companies have entire sites dedicated to describing how badly they suck, and we wrote about a similar site called JobVent last year). But unlike some of these alternatives, Telonu has a fairly attractive and professional interface that could help attract comments beyond the typical “my boss is a moron” drivel that prevent other sites from becoming valuable resources.
The site’s layout is reminiscent of Yelp, offering a summary of each company at the top of its profile followed by a listing of brief reviews from workers on the inside. When users sign up they are asked for their full names, but are guaranteed that these will never actually appear on the site (I’d be wary about entering it regardless, as it seems this information could be easily handed over to litigious companies by court order). Whenever users write a post about their company or co-worker, they can choose between displaying their names as ‘Anonymous’ or their site nickname, presumably so that they can make the really nasty messages totally untraceable.
Of course, with total anonymity comes questionable accuracy. Members of rival companies can easily litter profiles with poor reviews, so readers need to be wary of overly negative remarks (each review can be rated and commented on, so the obvious plants will hopefully sink to the bottom). Beyond standard reviews, the site also offers a section for ‘watercooler’ chit-chat as well as stock advice, which seems like an open invitation to offer insider trading tips given the ‘insidery’ nature of the site. But given the fact that there’s no way to actually verify if a tipster works at a company, even legitimate tips will probably get lost in the shuffle.
Beyond its interface there really isn’t much seperating Telonu from dozens of other competitors, including GlassDoor and the aforementioned JobVent. That said, none of these has really risen to become a well-known leader (as Yelp has with restaurant and entertainment reviews), so Telonu may still have a shot.
Sounds like GlassDoor + JuicyCampus
I used to have a website that did something like that. sigh.
It sounds kind of like ratemyprofessor.com, which grew in popularity while I was in school. I think it’s a good idea to provide a platform for people to annonymously vent their opinions, feelings and frustrations, but I have to agree that you’d have to take it with a grain of salt because we can’t truly know if they are real or being used to slam a competitor.
http://www.date...a.wordpress.com
You’d me nuts to give your real name on any site that you rant about something on.
To many individuals and corporations are profiling today, firing or not even looking at for hire, (basically like racial profiling but online) just for you being an individual and having a different opinion.
I just make it common practice to remain annon online.
I know it can be found out, but why make it easy?
As Mike said, it’s still one among dozens of other competitors — so don’t really figure out the key success factor.
There is also a problem of accuracy. I do you prevent an employee who got fired to talk behind his/her ex-boss’ back; or just the current employees forced to speak nicely in order to embellish their company.
As far I as know, a few website were launched in France but w/out success…
We kinda tried to do it with iStockCV in Belgium (http://www.istockcv.com we were covered by TC UK previously) — but we give up. At the end, we’ve decided to just let the candidates talk to employers/employees … (call it “social recruiting” as Jason Goldberg would say if he were still at Jobster.com).
One of the things Yelp has done fairly well is remove the anonymity filter which then gets people to write slightly more thoughtful reviews. It’s not perfect but they’ve tried.
If you’re completely anonymous, you can rant and rave with no repercussions and no credibility. While it might be thereapeutic or cathartic, I’m not sure it’s of much value to someone looking at that employer.
The old adage is that make a customer happy and they’ll tell 1 person and make them unhappy and they’ll tell 100. The same applies for Telonu, GlassDoor, etc.
I guess it’s an advertising based model as well. Wow – how 2007?
Plus in this market, the average joe is just happy to have a job. It’s a buyers market now so in a larger market opportunity sense, this doesn’t make sense either.
Over/under on when these guys hit the deadpool?
I give them 14 months starting today.
It’s still better to speak face to face, it solves the problems best.
What if you have an office in Hong Kong and one in Galapagos…make fun of each other online
Needs to get rid of the annoying signup box that pops up after you search for a few companies. If you’re going to force people to sign up, at least put something saying that, rather than giving them the ability to close the box, only to find out that they can’t do anything because the box is just going to pop right back up again. Perhaps they’ll have more success if they re-think their UI.
Anyhow, it’s been 10 minutes and I’m still waiting for my registration email. I don’t feel like waiting any longer, so this site will be long forgotten from my brain.
Terry, please check your junkmail folder. Thanks for checking out the site.
We’ve been getting a lot a traffic. To ease the burden on users whose mail has ended up in their junk mailbox, the site allows you to sign in even when you haven’t received the registration mail.
Thanks.
their interface looks great, one thing that will make it more recognizable is a favicon. that’s true, they missed it.
Nice startup,
———–
The West african nation of Togo’s first internet startup http://www.freshjada.com
What about telonu workers? can they say easily “i hate telonu” ?
Absolutely
A month ago, I was just telling my friend from NYC that I will develop a site now similar to this one, I even had registered the domain name, but now, too bad. I kind of miss Pud’s site though.
Must be where the bitches hang out.
I think the site looks good, although it is kind of overwhelming to navigate the homepage because there is so much information. What I really don’t like is that it has a section to rant on people. Companies, brands, schools is one thing, but when you start bad mouthing people its offensive and becomes a place where people can abuse each other i.e juicy campus.
As seen on telonu.com:
“WebGuild reports that Google has been laying off 50 employees at a time, to avoid reporting it to SEC”
I’m thinking unless they can monetize it, pretty soon you can expect a site where you can bitch about how much it sucked to work for a website where you bitch about your job.
Looks like this is the flavor of the season.. with many employer review sites springing up. And yes, no one has emerged as a leader.
In India, we have http://www.jobeehive.com which is becoming increasing popular.. and i think it has become no. 1 in India. I really like the way they have executed. JobeeHive is way ahead of glassdoor in India, according to alexa too.
JOB means “Just Over Broke”
okay dokay now…
haha i can go on and on there about my job and my boss
With recession, layoffs being the buzz word everywhere – More sites like this are bound to come up. But I guess the earlier ones like JobeeHive , Glassdoor will rule the roost simply because its a content race. JobeeHive has solely concentrated on India – They seem to have huge database built up. If you are living or working in India Check http://jobeehive.com
oh then its a type of anger management ,helps to show your frustration and thats where your mind rest in peace
regards
aartha
Sony DCR-SR45 30GB Handycam Camcorder – $299.00 @
http://tinyurl.com/7oonsm
The New York Times has an article featurig http://www.glassdoor.com, a site similar to Telonu.com.
Here is the link to the NYT; http://bits.blo...d-nice-in-2008/
Hey guys/gals,
I hope you don’t mind if I put in my small PR pitch as a comment. We have a similar website we are working on called http://www.companyresume.com. The premise is the same in that you review your employer. Where we stand out from the rest is that our aim is to build a community around each company beyond just the reviews written. Here are some of the highlights…
1. Simple quick reivews, or more complete full reviews.
2. Digg like community moderation where reviews are voted up or down along with a full comment system.
3. All users are anonymous, however user reputation is (will be) tracked. Too many votes down, and people wont take you serious any more.
4. Coming soon we will have a simple survey for each company, and along with the reviews, a question, problems and idea function.
5. Companies are encouraged to take part in the discussion by replying to reviews.
6. We have penguins… =) Seriously, no one else has penguins!
We are just at the end of beta, and should (hopefully) be live in 1 -2 months. Its all self funded, so its been very slow going. We still have some bugs to work out but we should be ready (hopefully).
Please stop by and check us out. Also, we are always looking for suggestions to improve the service. So feel free to send your ideas, complaints =) to fyurien@gmail.com
Take care
PS: Once we’re ready, we will send a proper PR letter to TechCrunch, so no more comment PR, I promise!
Sorry, one more thing. Our home page search function is a bit slow (poor sql), for now, so I thought it might help to have a direct link to a sample company, Apple. Here you go…
http://www.comp...uter_CA21932277
I love this site! I think its appropriate for this time.
Nifty. I wonder how companies will react when proprietary information ends up on here, which I thik is only a matter of time. Will they retract into a informatoin hoarding / need-to-know mentality?
I don’t like the site
Mike, Jason.. I think you guys need to review http://www.jobeehive.com on techcrunch. If you can review telonu.. I think you should take a look at jobeehive too. Moreover, we dont see you reviewing more of Indian origin sites.. I guess u should do that..
Oh great, a very funny side… I love it.
Interesting… Gonna take a look…
CareerVote.com is similar but takes a more positive approach. It’s still about rating and reviewing your employer but the focus is on sharing constructive information.
What if you have an office in Hong Kong and one in Galapagos…make fun of each other onlin
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