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Toutpost (YC S13) Wants To Turn Online Debates Into Shopping Advice

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Re: Toutpost (YC S13) Wants To Turn Online Debates Into Shopping Advice

#4

Post by josh2600 »

I don't know, I see this as potentially cool, but really very spammy.

Think about how trivial something like this is to manipulate, and if we're talking about the value of consumer electronics going into the hands of our nations youth; well that doesn't inspire me with confidence. If there's potential to gain, there will be potential for exploitation (see Cory Doctorow's excellent piece 'All Complex Ecosystems have Parasites'[0])

I don't think you can monetize uneducated commentary. This would be a lot more interesting, to me, if the conversations were between experts and the points were upvoted by the community. I see value in moderated debates with scoring provided by the community. I don't see value in anyone spouting their opinion and having upvotes on each side.

It's like reddit but with consumer sentiment at stake.

[0]http://craphound.com/complexecosystems.txt

Re: Toutpost (YC S13) Wants To Turn Online Debates Into Shopping Advice

#6

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #5

I had an idea a few years ago. Instead of getting people to come to a new site, why not harvest all the data on existing enthusiast sites out there? They have alllll the info on what model years are good and which to avoid, etc.

Also: http://www.epinions.com.

Re: Toutpost (YC S13) Wants To Turn Online Debates Into Shopping Advice

#8

Post by dictum »

>Turn Online Debates Into Shopping Advice

When I read the headline, I imagined a service that crawled forums and discussion boards and used NLP to determine useful shopping advice.

If that happened, all those non-slept nights spent battling people who were wrong on the Internet would finally pay off. (http://xkcd.com/386/)

Re: Toutpost (YC S13) Wants To Turn Online Debates Into Shopping Advice

#9

Post by aelaguiz »

josh2600 wrote: post #4

I don't know, I see this as potentially cool, but really very spammy. Think about how trivial something like this is to manipulate, and if we're talking about the value of consumer electronics going into the hands of our nations youth; well that doesn't inspire me with confidence. If there's potential to gain, there will be potential for exploitation (see Cory Doctorow's excellent piece 'All Complex Ecosystems have P…

You are absolutely correct. Most review systems which are owned by the merchants are largely viewed as a mechanism for increasing conversion. We don't make money by selling things though.

So although attempts to game the system will abound we are expressly and only incentivized to create a pure community with a genuine dialog. If the users lose we lose. Given incentive that strong we will have to confront gaming head on rather than be complicit.

Re: Toutpost (YC S13) Wants To Turn Online Debates Into Shopping Advice

#10

Post by compare »

dictum wrote: post #8

>Turn Online Debates Into Shopping Advice When I read the headline, I imagined a service that crawled forums and discussion boards and used NLP to determine useful shopping advice. If that happened, all those non-slept nights spent battling people who were wrong on the Internet would finally pay off. ( http://xkcd.com/386/ )

That's exactly what we do. 50,000+ comparison reviews already analyzed, in 600+ categories. Email us for a beta invite.
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