A Newbie's Guide to Epinions 2: Can I Be an Advisor Too?
Jul 17 '01
The Bottom Line Becoming an advisor requires you to be active member and more.
I became a Games Advisor in June. It occurred shortly after I wrote a review for Serious Sam, a FPS game. Since I was the first to review it, my brother (yusakugo) joked that it would give me the cherished advisor status. Lo and behold, he was right! I finally got that itsy-bitsy star above my faceless portrait with the words “Advisor in Games” next to it.
I could imagine what people were thinking after looking at my profile page. Who the heck is this guy? How in the world did this schmuck (amongst other words) become a [insert your favorite expletive] advisor when he can barely scrape up 1,000 member hits? This guy doesn’t even have 20 people trusting him! So if this [insert your second favorite expletive] newbie is an advisor, why the heck aren’t I?
Let’s shed some light on this subject. What’s so great about being an advisor, and how can you become one too?
What’s so hot about being an Advisor, anyways?
Being an advisor carries less weight nowadays than it did before. Much of that is due to the selection process, which I will get into in a moment.
As an aside: Oddly enough, while many members complain about how meaningless advisor status is, everybody still wants it. Must be an ego thing.
Being an advisor does not grant you instant fame and recognition. Epinions does not shine the spotlight on advisors; it’s more like a little candle next to you. In fact, you need to wade through several links just to find out who the advisors for a particular category are. However, having that little star above your portrait does have some perks.
Probably the most important perk for advisors is that your reviews get top priority in that particular category. So when people are looking up a product, the chances that they will see your review instead of the next Very Helpful review is much, much higher. Advisor status carries more weight than the web of trust (WOT). For example, my review of the game Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal will appear first, ahead of other members who have beefier webs of trust. However, outside of my field, my reviews are very likely to blend into the sea of other reviews. In the end, this translates into more hits for your reviews.
This top billing also applies to ratings. An advisor’s rating also get higher priority and will appear higher up in product reviews. Thus, they have a bit more influence on the review’s overall rating. This is a power to be used responsibly. It can also get you more noticed by the people you rate since your name tends to appear at the top of the list.
The other (and most important in my opinion) perk is that advisors can become Featured Reviewers. Now this means something! This is the creme of the crop in Epinions. Unlike ordinary advisors, featured reviewers do get the spotlight in Epinions. Featured reviewers are showcased all over the place. Open up the Epinions homepage and what do you see? A featured reviewer! Click on one of the product category pages. Along with everything else comes the featured reviewer. This is a great way to get your reviews some extra exposure to casual passer-bys to the site and more hits for your work!
Gotta love the bot
On the site, advisor status has been much maligned because of the selection process. The intricacies of this process are still a mystery (along with other features such as income share), but there seems to some general trends.
First, advisors are chosen by a bot. It goes through an algorithm for determining who is truly contributing to the site. First, you need to have a minimum number of reviews. What exactly that number is is anybody’s guess. But you can’t be a newbie with three VH reviews and become an advisor. You also need to continually contributing reviews to the site. A three month hiatus from the site doesn’t look good to the bot.
Not only do you need to have a number of reviews, you need to have reviews that are consistently rated Very Helpful. That’s the overall rating. Revenge raters and their ilk are of no consequence as they are lost in the sea of VH reviews.
The bot also keeps track of whether or not you are rating other people’s reviews. It is not enough to just write and write and write. You need to help ensure the overall quality of the site by evaluating your peers. I don’t know if the bot keeps track of what ratings you are handing out. It would make sense that the bot looks out for rubber stampers (those who indiscriminately throw out VH ratings), so that probably isn’t the case. Regardless, if you want to maintain a good name in the site (an important thing for any present and future advisor), you should be rating fairly.
Not only is the bot keeping track of how you rate and are rated, it notes what you write about. That means it looks for people to review the newest products, those items which outsiders are more likely to want to read about. So if you’re looking for advisor status, you can’t review things such as the Palm III PDA or a game like Diablo II; those products have been done to death. So you have to be amongst the first people to put in your two cents on a product.
Now, before you scour the site looking for brand new products to review, remember, you need to write good reviews. Throwing together 100 words of gibberish for the sake of being the first review is not going to get you anywhere.
The bot also analyzes who you trust. Are you trusting members who churn out crap reviews that justify their Somewhat or Not Helpful ratings? If so, you may want to rethink who you trust. You can trust a million members so long as those members are in good standing in Epinions. So don’t go stamping your seal of approval on abusers. Your WOT does not figure into the equation. After all, you don’t choose who trusts you.
Note: You do not need a picture to become an advisor. I had the infamous gray circle on for a month or so before I posted a picture. However, you do need a portrait to become a featured reviewer.
The Final Piece of the Advisor Puzzle
There is one last thing I have to mention. You may have come across excellent writers who consistently produce incredible reviews (WretchedPyro comes immediately to mind). Yet, they are not advisors. So the final piece of the advisor puzzle is luck! I wish there was something more profound than this. With a solid Epinions record and a bit of luck, you can recognized by the bot and be bestowed this illustrious honor.
As you can see, there is very little (if any) human input in this selection process. That’s why some members who deserve this recognition never get it Nevertheless, becoming an advisor is a worthwhile goal as it gives you a better chance to be in the spotlight and generate more hits. Provide solid contributions to the site, and you too can become an advisor!
If you haven't already done so, please cut and paste this link to read A Newbie's Guide to Epinions: Getting Your Name Out There:
http://gorocco.epinions.com/content_1596235908
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Epinions.com ID:
gorocco
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 - Top 1000 |
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Location: Stony Brook, NY
Reviews written: 91
Trusted by: 59 members
About Me:
Closing in on review 100
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