If you don't belong to a group already, don't even go there. If your not specific enough, if they don't agree with your review or if they just don't like you, they will mark all your reviews as unhelpfull. I agree with some of their rules that it makes sence to try a product first. However, when it comes to certain products, it does not take a genious to know if the are good/bad or not. For example, everyone on this site knows I am really into nutrition for animals. I wrote a review on Science Diet. Well, since I never tried the product (or tortured my animals by putting them on that crap), my review was marked as unhelpfull. I have since wrote over 30 reviews on that site and the only one that got marked as helpful was a review on a birdcage (that I B.S. and said I bought the product). How asinine is that?!? Not to mention, everyone is just rude overthere too! Great idea in the making, but they need to stop with the little groups that control the site. In effect, if you don't agree with them, your review gets bashed!

Way too many people write on products they have never touched. One 'lead' has written on over 500 DVD players; nothing more than cut and paste from the mfg specs. How is that helpful?

Annoying, really. To leave a comment you have to leave a "bottom line," along with pros and cons to the item you are rating, make it at least 250 words and do a spell check. I did this for a few baby items and the regulars over there swooped down on me like fresh road kill within hours. One told me that I was not specific enough with my details about a diaper brand and that she looked forward to re-evaluating me with a higher rating after I did some revisions. No thanks. I don't know who died and made her my writing coach. I left and never looked back.

It's so keyed on who your trusted by (Which Group you belong too) that real information is impossible. The cliques will kill anything, or anyone that they feel threatens their perception of power, the issue, or any other subjective (SUBJECTIVE) criteria.

Epionions.com is not as easy to rate stuff as rateitall.com! for one thing, you have to type more than 100 words and for another thing, i rated amerihost inn there, annd they did not have the approprate page for that hotel, but they did have section with a book about it, and that's where some people would go to rate it, and anyone who seen ratings about the chain itself, not the book, they would rate the review"not helpful"! That is very unprofesstional! they should know that if a site don't exactly have the relevent topic, you go to the next closest thing! and they sit there and flame people who don't sound 100% to the point and they don't describe every little detial! they also can't reply to any of support inquries, they send this automated thingy that i don't get my answer form. I don't get it. The UPDATE: I did get a check form them for my eroyalties and their site has improved. I have to say it got better while I was gone. They did finally add the ameirhost seciton. and It is laid out better. the site inmproved so I am increasing their rating at this time. But I like rateitll.com way better for the ease of use for leaving a rating.

Epinions is making a strong play to be a very useful first stop in the online shopping process. The site is generally fast, and has been able to collect tons of quality content in a very short period of time - in large part due to their decision to pay for useful comments. Epinions has also done a nice job of integrating useful tools such as price comparison technology, and expert reviews. My only complaints are that it is a little confusing to navigate around, and it is not a very good resource for finding information if you don't know what you are looking for already.

I found it hard to navigate around the site. RateItAll is more user-friendly, and also can give you more specialized information via its filtering mechanism.

Excellent concept, poor production of what could be a great resource. I had a very difficult time finding what I wanted to rate..the search was confusing and counter productive. When I finally did get to a list, the breadcrumb was totally screwed up, so I have no idea how I even got there. Also, I have heard the reviewers have yet to see a penny for their reviews!

Compared with Rate It All it's bad & unproffesional! :o(

I find this site extremely addictive, especially after I have written a review. I like checking out my profile page and seeing how much money I have made and the number of visits on my product reviews. It provides me a wealth of information to help me make my purchase decision.

Epinions is a great site to get high quality reviews you can use, not just ratings.

Most useful site for finding out real experiences people had with camping gear.

I think epinions is a great way to get product information and advice. I would definitely use epinions as a resource if I were going to buy something like a major appliance or a computer. epinions is also an extremely hot company right now, and they're getting a lot of great press.