Applications

RatePoint's Business Service Launches

The people who built GeoTrust (and sold it to VeriSign) have some ideas about how to change a key online service: rating online businesses.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [July 24, 2007]

This is a very young company, barely nine months old. For most of that time, Needham, Mass.-based RatePoint has been fine-tuning its system. You can find a free plug-in for FireFox and, more intriguingly, a tool for the online community Second Life.

"We don't earn money on Second Life," explains Neil Creighton, RatePoint co-founder and CEO. "We have a RatePoint island in Second Life. We've had rating parties. Some raters are building us a huge stadium there."

The Second Life tool allows people to rate other people in the community, and provides a "people who liked person x also liked person y" tool.

Here's one blogger's brief recommendation of the system (with "photo" from Second Life).

Ready for real life
Now the tool for business is ready to launch and the company is embracing webhosts and ISPs as channel partners as it tries to reach a massive number of businesses in a short period of time.

The company charges businesses $49 per year to be in the system (compared with $500 or more to be in the BBB). But the company is competing on quality, not price (and is particularly eager to be compared with the BBB).

1. Using its GeoTrust background, the company will authenticate comments.
   
   
2. It will accentuate the positive (partly by expelling companies that users hate).

To understand the authentication system, Creighton encourages us to go to the Superior Nut Company and write I comment. I give the company four out of five and explain in the text that I'm a journalist. I receive a phone call and put Creighton on hold. An automated system gives me a number that I type into the comment. The database thus ties every comment to a real world phone number.

Creighton expects that this is a service that every one of your business customers will want to order. So what exactly are you selling? "We're selling a ratings system, primarily. We also provide an entry in our business directory, and a sticker for an offline business to put in your window. We're even having businesses that aren't online join. They use their entry in our directory as their online presence."

"This is the Web 2.0 revolution," Creighton claims. "The consumer is our investigator and we're the consumer's partner."

But people will try to manipulate the system. "We can see if a business tries to manipulate their own ratings."

As to customers posting bad words in highly positive ratings, the business gets to choose which positive ratings get displayed.

Pricing and availability
Until August 31, 2007, the ratings system is free for one year to any business that signs up. RatePoint is also offering free inventory to hosting companies.

ISPs and webhosts receive an undisclosed discount on the $49 per year price after August 31, 2007. The discount is structured so that smaller hosts may choose to buy from larger hosts instead of buying directly from RatePoint.

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