Techcrunch has a good review of iKarma. I’ve been on the site for a while now and agree with most of what they said, both the good and bad.
Tagging can wait, it’s usefulness to average customer is lost. I spend a lot of time talking about tagging, and most people have to let the concept sink in for a while before they can take advantage of the power tagging unleashes in Web 2.0 applications.
Contextually sensitive profile sharing is important but partitioning on email address won’t work.
Opening up the API is key, no new web service can survive without doing this.
They need deals, and not eBay deals. They will not get that until they have a track record and bring their feature set more in line with what eBay users are used to.
1-5 rating scale won’t work, not near enough granularity for reputation management.
There seems to be some movement at Opinity, which is patenting several features, including it’s dispute resolution process. They also have added tags, although the usage is not clear past being able to promote the reputation you want, which seems counterproductive.
I like the Network Visualizer, a step further than the simple visualization I created for the dating industry. I would love to be able to extend the visualization and add it’s back end to enhance it to do what I feel is useful, not that they think. Enter the open API.
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Thanks for the review Dave!
I appreciate your views about an open API and your complement on our new iKarma Network Viewer. I also enjoyed seeing your dating industry viewer. I think Mind Maps can really be an interesting interface for the right kind of data. All of your other suggestions are great ideas. In fact most are things we have considered and even tested. But in each case we found that simplicity trumps additional features every time. Simplicity rules the day. iKarma was created for our users, but it was designed for our users non-technical customers and clients in mind. If a client has to spend more than 10 seconds trying to understand what they’re looking at, then the system is useless. You and I and probably all of your readers understand the technical beauty of a contextually sensitive, multi-scaled, time-weighted and custom tag-able reputation engine, but if the result looks more like the dashboard of a submarine than the movie ratings in the Sunday paper, the average Joe will never use it.
By the way, have you noticed that Opinity is looking a lot more like iKarma lately? :) Simplicity Rules!
I will agree that we would like to find a strategic partner or two or three or seven.. Please feel free to use your knowledge of the dating industry to hook us up? We’re looking for a mature company with deep pockets that’s into nubile young start-ups who enjoy spreading their karma, public offerings and long walks on the beach! Call me! LOL
Thanks for the review Dave!
I appreciate your views about an open API and your complement on our new iKarma Network Viewer. I also enjoyed seeing your dating industry viewer. I think Mind Maps can really be an interesting interface for the right kind of data. All of your other suggestions are great ideas. In fact most are things we have considered and even tested. But in each case we found that simplicity trumps additional features every time. Simplicity rules the day. iKarma was created for our users, but it was designed for our users non-technical customers and clients in mind. If a client has to spend more than 10 seconds trying to understand what they’re looking at, then the system is useless. You and I and probably all of your readers understand the technical beauty of a contextually sensitive, multi-scaled, time-weighted and custom tag-able reputation engine, but if the result looks more like the dashboard of a submarine than the movie ratings in the Sunday paper, the average Joe will never use it.
By the way, have you noticed that Opinity is looking a lot more like iKarma lately? :) Simplicity Rules!
I will agree that we would like to find a strategic partner or two or three or seven.. Please feel free to use your knowledge of the dating industry to hook us up? We’re looking for a mature company with deep pockets that’s into nubile young start-ups who enjoy spreading their karma, public offerings and long walks on the beach! Call me! LOL
Hi David and Paul,
I surely enjoyed reading the techcrunch review. As another reputation company, Opinity share many of the issues that were pointed out.
About tagging… we just added the feature, but it is really just an experiment at this stage. We know that tagging people can be controversial and it is not clear what the use case will be.
Opinity will be officially launching the site in a couple of weeks, and as Paul said we did try to make it simpler than before. If you felt that Opinity looks like iKarma, I would like to take that as a compliment:)
Paul, as I blogged yesterday, I am excited to have another player in the reputation space. We should talk!
Hi David and Paul,
I surely enjoyed reading the techcrunch review. As another reputation company, Opinity share many of the issues that were pointed out.
About tagging.. we just added the feature, but it is really just an experiment at this stage. We know that tagging people can be controversial and it is not clear what the use case will be.
Opinity will be officially launching the site in a couple of weeks, and as Paul said we did try to make it simpler than before. If you felt that Opinity looks like iKarma, I would like to take that as a compliment:)
Paul, as I blogged yesterday, I am excited to have another player in the reputation space. We should talk!
Hey -
This question is for Paul Williams. If Ikarma is so great, why do you market it through Spam email? I have to say that your boiler room tactics are brilliant.
Regards,
Karl