I think it is important to read more about epinions. Beyond the fact that it is pretty much dead today, was firesaled, and was had some nasty interpersonal personnel issues, I think it is a classic example of a company with a unmanageable story:
"Here's how it works: we convince people to write opinions. And then when someone else reads that opinion, and ranks it highly, we'll give the writer a piece of an affiliate link sale."
There's way, way, way too many steps involved in making a few pennies.
The story that you tell your users (all of them) is very important. Epinion's was pretty miserable.
A buddy of mine said that one of the reasons that Google's a money machine is that it is dead easy for a neophyte web advertiser to set up an ad:
1. Pick some words
2. Pick how much you want to pay
3. Done.
Its also something Niklas Zennstrom articulates about picking problems to solve: pick simple propositions e.g. Skype: free phone calls, Joost: Tv when you want it, Kazaa: share files easily in order to reach a mainstream market.
Whats your background btw - shoot me an email, i'm pretty interested.
"Here's how it works: we convince people to write opinions. And then when someone else reads that opinion, and ranks it highly, we'll give the writer a piece of an affiliate link sale."
There's way, way, way too many steps involved in making a few pennies.
The story that you tell your users (all of them) is very important. Epinion's was pretty miserable.
A buddy of mine said that one of the reasons that Google's a money machine is that it is dead easy for a neophyte web advertiser to set up an ad:
1. Pick some words 2. Pick how much you want to pay 3. Done.
That's the level of story you want to tell.
Measure your story against that.