A story by MediaPost points out the need for online directories to incorporate ratings, reviews and social networking elements to draw consumers (traffic) to their sites.
I agree with that philosophy and that’s what I did for my wife a few years ago when I created gogoMama. It’s a maternity directory that she adds sites to and then rates the sites. Consumers can also provide feedback on products or merchants if they want to. Shannon’s decided to redo the site so it will be interesting to see what she comes up with.
The reason I pointed out her site is because this report from The Kelsey Group isn’t anything new. The need for objective/unbiased reviews and information from consumers is something that’s been around for a while.
Just ask Michael Yang, the founder of MySimon (which was acquired by CNet). MySimon was one of the first and most well known product review and comparison engines out there.
Now Michael and YeoGirl (incredible search engine technical expert) are at it again. The shopping comparison search engine they’re getting ready to launch started out with the name Exava but is now called Become. I’m really looking forward to seeing which features they’ll implement in the first round of Become.
It’s folks like Michael Yang and Yeogirl Yun that will lead us into the next phase of search technologies. Keeping an eye on them is a good idea because you’ll probably learn a thing or two and see the future of search evolve before your eyes.
Jason Dowdell is a technology entrepreneur and operates the Marketing Shift blog.
