Monday, April 04, 2005

Some examples of online citizen review sites (book reviews)

As some readers of The Writing Way may remember, I set this blog up both to gain experience in blogging and also to support a current research project, which is to study what I'm calling online citizen reviewers. As a quick reminder, these are folks who publish reviews on Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com or on personal web sites.

Lately, I've been trying to get a sense of just how many online citizen book review sites there are. I've now got the answer.

A LOT.

Definitely more than I could ever hope to visit or catalogue.

But I can try to give some sense of the range of sites.

There are the obvious sites that I just mentioned: Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, etc.

Other large sites that include book reviews by (generally unpaid) citizen reviewers include:
AllReaders.com (This site uses a 7 page form that reviewers fill out.)
AllExperts.com
Readerville.com (This is more on an online forum than review site)
DearReader.com
BookReporter.com
Complete-Review.com

The Complete Review is a very valuable resource not so much for its reviews--though it does have them--as for its links. It has links to print and web-based book review sites, literary weblog lites, international literary sites, and publishers' sites.

The Complete Review helped me to identify some personal book review websites. The following are just a few examples; there are many more:
Steph's Book Reviews (www.stephsbookreviews.com)
Blether (www.blether.com)
Kristen's Book Reviews (www.kristenvoskuil.com)

I'd be very interested to know if readers know of other online book review sites that depend on unpaid citizen/customer reviews for content.

I'm also interested in review sites for products other than books that depend on citizen/customer reviews. Craig's list (www.craigslist.com) is a good example of such a site.

Are there online book review sites that you regularly visit that I have not listed here? Please send them my way. Are there other sites that depend either on citizen reviewers or on reputation-building (I'm thinking here of sites like EBay and Epinion, where those who use the site rate those who sell things or provide opinions about them) that you like? Again, please send them my way.

3 Comments:

At 7:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting that BookReporter.com has a tab marked, "Blog." A hybrid form--a Web site that has a blog as a featurette.

Hope

 
At 11:38 AM, Blogger Lisa Ede said...

It is interesting. I'm finding the blog/website distinction murkier and murkier. There are instances where it's easy to make a clear distinction--but in other cases it's harder.

This is something Professor Laura Gurak predicted when she spoke on blogging at OSU's Center for the Humanities last fall.

 
At 7:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A blog requires less skill to construct than a Web site, I believe. Less HTML and formatting. Much more of a turnkey operation.

And what does Gurak say now?

Hope

 

Post a Comment

<< Home