Product reviews, both from users and experts, are an integral part of the shopping process. Generally, I scour the web for both negative and positive reviews, across multiple sites before purchasing ant type of gadget. Product recommendation research engine Wize has launched a redesigned version of its platform that aggregates reviews from across the web. Launched in 2006, Wize lets consumers search for reviews on electronics, home goods, video games, health products and more. It searches shopping sites with user reviews, such as Amazon and BestBuy, as well as expert reviews from traditional product review sites.
Wize’s technology has been tweaked to read reviews across the web and then analyze what people have said is good, bad or important using real everyday language (i.e. Very Portable, Great for sports!). So shoppers can indicate in their product review search that they are looking for a camera that is “very portable” or “good for vacations” and they will receive recommendations with that language.
Along with a technology overhaul, Wize has added a host of new features including “Wize Choice Recommendations,” which is an authoritative opinion of the best and worst products available on the Web, based on Wize’s proprietary analysis engine; and gives users the ability to see reviews by product or by a category or consumer need (i.e. MP3 accessories).
Wize will also let you save and organize your searches relating to a given product, making it easier to the user to save research. And Wize is becoming a little more social by pulling in real-time feeds from Twitter that have mentions of products.
I’m a fan of Wize’s tweaked site, which gives consumers a in-depth look at what people are saying about a particular product. The startup, which has raised $4 million in funding, faces competition from Retrevo, ReviewGist and ViewScore.
“what people have said is good, bad or important using real everyday language”
No, there’s more, reviews devoid of critical thought, grammar or utility.
Yup, and on goes the idoiotification of humanity…
My comment was mean and snarky.
When a purchase is around $200 and up, I prefer a more editorialized and systematic evaluation of goods. I gladly pay for ConsumerReports.org (ca. $20/yr); they’re tough to beat. They even provide their experimental methods. Amazon reviews have plenty of anecdotal (and often useful comments).
Wize looks nice, but those quick snippets in everyday language turned me away immediately.
The problem with CR (I’ve had a subscription in the past) is their reviews are good but VERY sparse. And the other thing is there might be 75 items in a category, and they will review a random sampling of 5 of them. How does that help anyone?
I looked for TVs once and I swear they had like 8 HDTVs reviews and that was it. Ridiculous.
You’re right. This is the biggest drawback to their site. Come on people… your site needs content.
Looks good but it’s a bit too bright for me.
Didn’t they release this redesign months and months ago? Like 6+ months ago?
I’ve quickly made a page to search and compare wize, retrevo and reviewgist with one click: http://favtabs..../productreviews
Use the search bar at the bottom (e.g. “Nikon D60″)
Hmm, I like the new design really.. a very wize decision.
Great to see the new redesign, great job!
As one of Wize competitors (TestFreaks) it’s a pity not to be mentioned in the article since our growth the last 12 months have been rather good both in the US and our other markets.
We are helping 1.8 million consumer per month in the US and over 4 million worldwide to find better products trough both user and expert reviews.
Cheers,
Stefan
TestFreaks
Old design, old idea, slow new day? Aren’t they swirling the dead pool?
Sounds exactly like what Retrevo has been doing for over a year.
Looks clear but I don’t like their overall design. Mainly because it’s yellow and it’s so bright. Except that there’s not much data on the page and it looks empty.
Anyway, it looks better than some other websites for me but it’s still not perfect in my opinion
.
I’m curious how these companies are doing. We started a company (dontbuyjunk.com – no longer running) in 2004 that did exactly this, which ViewScore essentially copied in their initial version (seriously). The site was popular, but we learned a valuable lesson: shopping/product comparison sites are arbitrage businesses. Without a large budget for AdWords or a similar means of driving traffic, the site simply couldn’t run. Unfortunately, even with a very unique algorithm and value proposition, consumers are given far too many choices when making a purchase, and it’s very difficult to generate significant revenue from organic traffic.
I’m guessing the initial funding could be enough to get it off the ground and sustainable, but I’d be curious how profitable the business is.
How is Become doing?
My problem with review sites, from the automated ones like Wize to the more traditional ones like Cnet, is that they don’t take progress into account. If you search for, say, the highest rated compact camera, you’re very likely to get a model that came out two years ago to rave reviews. That just isn’t helpful, because as groundbreaking as that product may have been two years ago, it has certainly been surpassed. The newer cameras — or whatever product you’re looking at — might not have better reviews, but that’s because expectations rise, not because they haven’t improved in two years. Worse, if you’re not tech savvy, you may not realize this and you may end up buying something totally obsolete. Anyone know of a site that has made efforts to fix this by, say, systematically lowering existing reviews every six months or so?
Wize seems rather basic. It’s easy to do a 4 out of 5 star system. I still don’t know anyone who can do what Retrevo does. The real time review that compares multiple aspects of a product (live) and the value map which plots products on a chart by price and “value.” http://www.retr.../digital+camera
search your feelings… you know it to be true…
this company is like a zebra mollusk in the dead pool. it won’t productively live, it won’t silently die
they’ve been around for years, i hardly think they can be called a startup
sorry but that is NOT a good color scheme