{"id":7210,"date":"2010-08-19T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T14:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=7210"},"modified":"2025-12-03T12:22:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:22:45","slug":"reviews-are-dead-long-live-reviews-will-facebook-places-change-the-review-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/19\/reviews-are-dead-long-live-reviews-will-facebook-places-change-the-review-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Reviews Are Dead! Long Live Reviews – Will Facebook Places Change the Review Landscape?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is early in the game and folks are just digesting what Facebook Places<\/a> is all about but I was struck by a Twitter comment by Seb Provencher (@sebprovencher)<\/a>:<\/p>\n

With the FB Places launch, we can officially say it: merchant\/place reviews are dead. Status updates are the new merchant reviews.<\/em><\/p>\n

So I asked several folks that followed the announcement closely to provide a more nuanced view of the statement.<\/p>\n

From Seb Provencher<\/a> who had not yet had his first coffee so this opinion is open to revision:<\/p>\n

– Status updates (or tweets) are easy to do.
\n– many people have stopped blogging because doing short-form messages
\nis so much “easier”, less time-consuming, than a big blog post.
\n– I think the same thing will happen to long-form merchant reviews.
\nIt’s going to become so much easier to do a quick status update review
\nusing Facebook places (and those will accumulate on the Facebook Place
\npage) that a lot of people will migrate from doing reviews on Yelp (or
\nIYPs for that matter) to<\/p>\n

For me, Facebook Places is not about “check-ins”. It’s about signaling
\nsocially your location. It’s about structuring a conversation about a
\nlocal place and anchoring it to the right place.<\/p>\n

From Greg Sterling<\/a> who responded from his iPad even though it is 6:45 am where he is:<\/p>\n

Status updates are not the same or better than reviews in many cases because people won’t offer more than “tips” or sometimes will just create noise: “we’re all here.”<\/p>\n

So “try the fries” or the “killer reindeer sausage” doesn’t answer other questions I may have about a place, such as whether it’s good for kids, etc. If FB “aggregates” all this info and does a kind of semantic analysis of it then it may not be as necessary to consult reviews in the future at some point.<\/p>\n

It’s also not clear immediately how FB is going to make all this information discoverable. There’s going to be a search component here but the form it takes isn’t yet clear — even to FB.<\/p>\n

Seb is probably responding to the mainstream potential\/appeal of the product and the idea that people will just write tips or short blurbs rather than reviews.<\/p>\n

But reviews will continue to have their place (so to speak) from a consumer perspective. In terms of “references” and SEO that’s going to be an interesting thing to watch here.<\/p>\n

Google could access all the API and “Like” button information that is coming out of Facebook equally. And this move puts some pressure on them to “socialize” their own Places I think.<\/p>\n

And David Mihm<\/a> who also is an early riser:<\/p>\n

Hyperbole. Ratings are important for a quick look by the consumer who doesn’t want to read through all the garbage. There’s also an actual reviews tab built in by default to FB pages.<\/p>\n

Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is early in the game and folks are just digesting what Facebook Places is all about but I was struck by a Twitter comment by Seb Provencher (@sebprovencher): With the FB Places launch, we can officially say it: merchant\/place reviews are dead. Status updates are the new merchant reviews. So I asked several folks …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-social","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t