PowerReviews - Epinions Should Fear the End of Private Beta

As a long-time Epinions member and contributor, I was skeptical of any new review sites. After all, with the affiliation with eBay and Shopping.com, Epinions seems to have cornered the market on consumer reviews, utilizing a community for content creation and peer ratings when Web 2.0 was a mere twinkle in Tim O'Reilly's eye. In addition, since the inception of Epinions, most online retailers have implemented consumer reviews on their own sites, so why would another really be necessary?

A quick pass through the PowerReviews private beta answers that question, and the folks at Epinions should take note. Aside from the eye-catching design of the site, PowerReviews has used many common Web 2.0 features to their advantage to provide a much more easily searched database of products. Users can not only search by product rating, but also by tags that users create. Want patio furniture that doesn't take all day to assemble? Simply click on the "Easy to assemble" tag link for the products ranked easier to put together by users.

An additional feature of the site includes a notation for "Verified Purchaser." Anyone familiar with online product reviews knows that there are some reviewers fond of reviewing an entire category of items, often without much personal experience beyond an in-store try-out. PowerReviews has a system where users follow a certain set of instructions to submit their review after purchase, verifying that they actually do own the item and have spent some time using it, giving the review more believability than someone who might review the entire line of Dyson vacuums. Reviews submitted are also moderated, preventing spam and offensive material from being posted on the site, rather than relying on users to police submissions, which could be the key to selling reviews to retailers.

From the looks of things, Epinions has to be at least a bit concerned, running a current promotion on the site paying members $1 extra in revenue share per review submitted if they submit at least 10 reviews, in groups of 10. It looks like they are trying to plump up the number of reviews on the site before PowerReviews comes out of private beta.

While PowerReviews does seem to have the nifty Web 2.0 features, it remains to be seen how they will lure more eyes to the site. Epinions is currently the Goliath in the space, and pay content providers a share of the company's revenue for their submissions. PowerReviews got the site seeded during the private beta with two sweepstakes for participants, but did not respond to my email asking what future plans they had to motivate content providers to continue writing reviews.

It's going to be interesting seeing how this plays out. Epinions has spent a long time as the biggest name in consumer reviews, and the arrival of some serious competition should shake things up.