The only online community that keeps me in its web Oct 27 '99    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Those who know little about Epinions wonder what the point is. After all, there are opinion sites everywhere. Deja.com, Amazon, CNET, and message boards abound. I have abandoned all but Epinions for one reason: Epinions is the only site that understands and leverages human nature. Here's why: 1) Humans need feedback in order to maintain commitment to any cause. Epinions offers immediate feedback/gratification that other sites don't. 2) Humans want followers. Epinions contributors feel that they have a string of devotees when they see a list of people that trust them. 3) Humans want to be noticed. No one reading your reviews? Go rate 20 of other people's reviews right now and watch your own traffic rise. 4) Humans want to see who noticed them. You can bet that if someone trusts me or rates my epinion, I'm going to read/rate at least a few of their epinions. Thrown pebbles make waves. 5) Humans like to keep score. Not only do I have feedback (emotional payoff), I can compare my statistics to others' on the site. If that's not my bag, I have a $$ amount that says "we at Epinions want to thank you." E-Royalties are a good front when explaining to people why you spend so much time on the site. But essentially, they're paying me a quarter an hour to throw pebbles into their pond and make waves. And I will thank them for it. I hope they have patents in the works. I use MyYahoo religiously. But I generate 100x more traffic for Epinions than I ever will for Yahoo. The only question is, what will be the big payoff--other than a killer site--for Epinions?

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