Feedback Badges

*To request an invitation to participate in the RateItAll blog feedback / community widget, click HERE.*

So the big project that we've been working on for the last six weeks or so, and the source of all of those odd test ratings on things like Yoda and the Dell computer page, is finally out of the bag.

We've just launched a distributed rating badge / widget that will allow rating and reviewing of stuff that is on RateItAll to take place on sites other than RateItAll. For an example, check out the badge in the right hand corner of this blog - this badge links back to the listing for the RateItAll Blog that sits on RateItAll. Ratings and reviews can be posted about this blog right here, without the reviewer ever having to go to RateItAll. So now, people reading the blog, can rate it right here. In flow. Without having to go to RIA and find the right page. I think this is a big deal.

Clicking on the tabs at the bottom of the badge will also show you photos of folks who have left recent reviews, and let you scroll through the various reviews.

As a starting point, we're planning to roll this out to blogs in the RateItAll Blog Directory as a way for them to get feedback from their readers, and add an element of community to their blog. I'll be opening this feature up to some RIA bloggers over the next week or so.... stay tuned.

I'm hopeful that blogs will be just the start. Another example of how something like this might be used can be seen on Magellan's profile page. You can now rate Magellan right from his profile page, without having to go through the hassle of finding his listing on the RateItAll reviewers list. All ratings and reviews posted via the badge on his profile page, will also show up on the RateItAll reviewers list. Those of you familiar with the scope of RateItAll's coverage can probably think of some other applications as well :)

We Will Recode the Recent Comments Page

Guys, I apologize for the performance issues on the recent reviews page for logged in users - it's unacceptable.

I'm trying to get something out the door that I am demo'ing tonight at 7PM, but once that's over, we will get to rebuilding this page.

A short term fix for this problem? Log out. If you're logged out, the page loads fast as lightning.

More Recent Comments Page Problems

It looks like we're having that problem again in which the recent reviews page hangs for logged in users. This is a real pain, as it's the freshest page of the site, and trouble with this page slows down the flow of feedback on our reviews.

We're working on it.

RateItAll Survey

I'm hoping you can help me out with something. I'm trying to get a better understanding of who we are - who are the users of RateItAll, what do we do when we're on the site, and what stuff do we like / dislike.

If you have a few minutes, I'd really appreciate it if you could take this short survey.

The survey is entirely anonymous - you can enter in your email address if you want to participate in the raffle, but you don't have to.

New Channel - Medical Treatments

Guys, we've launched a new channel for rating lists of medical treatments by condition. Let me know if you have any requests as we build out this section.

Take Your RateItAll Reviews With You

Guys, we're VERY close to launching a widget that will let you display your most recent 15 RIA reviews and RIA profile on other sites like your blog or your MySpace page.

Thanks to Ridge, aWiseguy, Kamylienne, GTH, Numbah, Randyman, and HKK for their help in testing this thing (if I forgot somebody, please remind me).

For an example of what it looks like, check out the right sidebar of this blog below the t-shirt display.

There's still a few funky things that I'm trying to solve before I make this available to everybody. Stay tuned... it shouldn't be long now.

The Impact of RateItAll's New Quad Web Server

Reviews posted in:

January - 16,233
February - 16,523
March - 31,351

Upon Further Review...

... The slow loading recent comments page is only happening for logged in members, and is the return of a bug we've seen before. It has something to do with how the system "remembers" which reviews have been marked helpful / not helpful by each member.

We had this bug before. We fixed this bug before. We now just have to remember what we did to fix it. Stay tuned, and sorry for the slowness of this critical page.

Looking for a few good testers

We are perhaps only a few days from launching a very cool new feature. I'm looking for a few brave souls to test this thing out before it goes live.

If you are interested in seeing RIA's latest and greatest, please shoot me a note (or comment to this post). I'll probably only be accepting RIA regulars for this particular release.

Recent Comments Page Tweak

The recent comments page has historically pulled all of the new reviews within the most recent 24 hour period. With traffic and review volume up, the recent comments page has been dragging. This morning I was seeing 6-8 second load times.

For the site's most important page, this is unacceptable.

So what we've done is to cap this page at the most recent 250 reviews. I think you'll agree that performance is much faster.

Time Stamp Bug Fixed

Is it just me or was the daylight savings switch more of a hassle then usual this year? My phone showed the wrong time for about 2 weeks, and now two of our various servers were displaying different time stamps.

Anyway, this bug should be fixed now.

Return of the Time Stamp Issue

I've noticed that the time stamp issue is back. Reviews posted from the item page are showing up as one hour older on the recent comments page than they should.

We should have this issue taken care of by tomorrow.

All Time Record Traffic Month

RateItAll is officially into uncharted territory in terms of the number of folks using the site. We did almost 1.1M visits in March, narrowly beating our top traffic month of all time.

Folks are also looking at more pages per visit, and a higher percentage of visits are repeat visits.

Happily, this is not an April Fool's joke.