I Feel Lost!
Jul 17 '00
I don't get it. I just don't get it! The whole web of trust thing is just throwing me for a loop.
I don't know about anyone else here, but I have two goals: 1) to have a showcase for some of my writing, and 2) to make a little bit of money for my troubles. In doing this I also hope to add my part to making Epinions a good, read well visited, site. I guess the web of trust is helpful in all three counts, but I'm not sure it works for any except making money.
To date, I have written 18 epinions, including this one. I trust 17 people and seven people trust me. Two things: I don't know if I should be trusting many more (I've seen some writers who trust 100, 200, or more!) and I don't know how to get more people to trust me. My early thought is that there is a serious quid pro quo going on. A you trust me and I'll trust sort of thing.
Does this help get member visits? Does this help increase overall traffic to my epinions? I saw one writer who wrote only 10 epinions but had over 3000 member visits and over 8000 total visits! That's incredible. The writer's trust list included over 100 writers. Is that the key?
I can't shake the feeling that there is some type of inner circle who know exactly how to manipulate this system, a cadre of insiders who have gained some useful insight. One one hand I say, "Great! Good for you guys." On the other, I wonder if this inner circle info weakens the informational value of this site. A handful of people running around patting each other on the back over and over again is certainly no way to build consistently valuable and trustworthy content.
Like I said, my primary goal is to have a place to showcase some of my writing skills, but I can't overlook my equally compelling secondary goal: to make money.
If anyone would care to share some of this insight, without bogus ways of manipulating outcomes, I would appreciate it.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
tccarroll
|
|
Member: Teddy Carroll
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Reviews written: 30
Trusted by: 12 members
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.