Is Angie Nuts?

I am a big fan of online rating and review sites. These sites seem to represent the core idea of the Internet: people sharing information with other people.

There has been a lot of growth in this market (see my previous post for a few examples), and there are now review sites for almost any type of product or service. One of the most visible sites in the past couple of years has been Angie's List, a membership-based site where people share information about local contractors and service providers. I joined Angie's List and explored it a bit, but never actually used it.

I was surprised therefore when I got a letter from the company telling me that my free trial had ended, and in order to maintain my account I would need to pay an annual fee of $53. Wow!

Bear in mind that the ratings and reviews on Angie's List, just as on other review websites, are posted by users. So why should I pay $53 a year to access reviews written by other people like myself? Paid membership business models were tried on the Internet a decade ago, and for the most part (thankfully) failed.

In the case of Angie's List, I think the high membership fee will be self-defeating. Most people will not be willing to pay such a high annual fee, so the pool of reviewers will quickly shrink, and people will turn to the many free rating and review sites.

As usual, I will end with a few links:

There's a great Wikipedia article about review sites, with a little history, and some pros and cons.

There is a good list of review sites on Wikidweb.com

The Ratingz Network operates a growing family of review sites with over a dozen so far.

RatingParadise lets you rate the review sites