Shout it from the Mountaintop
Jan 12 '00
I'm an opinionated person. And while I don't have an opinion on everything, it's only because I simply don't have the time to think about everything.
But what's the point of having an opinion if you never have the chance to share it with others? Oh sure, it's good to know where you stand on specific issues. But isn't it nice to share that view with others? To get feedback on your thoughts? To take the time to see things from another's perspective, thereby expanding your own?
And most of us have that circle of friends, those with whom we can share our opinions. But with increasingly less free time in this busy world, and many of us who browse the internet regularly having less time for other forms of social interaction, isolation often begins to seep in to our lives.
Enter Epinions.com, a website for those of us with something to say. Here, a forum exists ripe with opportunity for self-expression, and for learning and expanding our own horizons. It's a place with a thought or two on everything, and a place where we can make our own thoughts known.
What could possibly make that better? Getting paid for it. An extra night out at Burger King just for being honest about how we see the world around us.
But, there's a hitch. Promote the site as another internet "Money for Nothing" scheme, and it will quickly become overloaded with people writing meaningless and inconsequential drivel just to make an extra buck. Of course, there are standards in place to reduce the frequency of such things on Epinions.com, but it still happens. I'll admit to finding myself writing a review on something new and popular rather than on something I might feel more passionately about that seems a little outdated, simply because I know they'll get more hits and make me more money.
And the update frequency is lacking, happening once or twice a day at most. It's disheartening to log on in the evening after work to see that your reviews have received no hits, at least until you figure out that the totals haven't been updated today; then it's just annoying to have to wait so long.
And as a final complaint, the help documentation does not quite cover all the questions one might have, such as how to post an opinion on a general category rather than on a specific product, how to rate products and services not found in the Epinions.com database, and how to delete opinions that repeat in your list of opinions because of a server glitch.
But nothing's perfect. If there weren't downsides to things, we wouldn't appreciate the upsides so much...
All in all, Epinions.com is a wonderful and refreshing place, its redeeming qualities far outweighing its few faults. We can only hope that Epinions.com survives and persists, so that we can all continue to benefit of the wisdom of each other's unique perspectives.
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Epinions.com ID:
misterME
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Member: Michael E. Hopkins
Location: Columia, SC
Reviews written: 34
Trusted by: 41 members
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