news & views from RateItAll

The RateItAll Blog has a New Home

2010-02-19T17:03:00.000-08:00

We are circling the wagons and bringing the venerable RateItAll Blog in house to a new home: http://blog.rateitall.com.

Thanks to Blogger for the memories, and we plan to leave these archive posts up indefinitely.

Talking Winter Olympics

2010-02-16T12:13:00.001-08:00

OK, here is what we have going on the topic of the Olympics:

Athletes of the 2010 Winter Games
Rate the athletes like Bode Miller, Lindsey Vonn, etc.

Events of the 2010 Winter Games
Rating and commenting on stuff like the Opening Ceremonies, The Anti-Olympic Protests, and the tragic death of the Georgian luger.

Winter Games Events
Rate the events themselves like Figure Skating, Short Track, Ice Hockey, etc.

Treatment of New RateItAll Members

2010-02-08T15:26:00.000-08:00

For the most part, I believe the RateItAll community to be pretty fair and decent in its treatment of issues and each other.

But recently, I've been noticing a disturbing trend of a handful of regulars picking on new users.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell you that an online community that scares away new members is an online community that will struggle to grow.

As such, this is a very, very big deal to me and the rest of the RIA team, and we are moving the issue up the priority list.

To date, we've asked folks to police themselves in this area. Sure, I've sent the occasional private message or made the occasional blog post. But to date, we haven't made any institutional changes.

But as the community grows, this doesn't seem to be enough.

Effective immediately, we are going to treat the issue with a combination of "legislation" - aka, site rules, and tools.

On the tools side, we are exploring a number of member and admin controlled tools including the ability to block another member from commenting on your stuff or messaging you, and the ability to lock a thread.

On the rules side, effective immediately, anyone who is seen as harassing, flaming, or otherwise making things unpleasant for a new member will be suspended for one week. Subsequent transgressions will be treated more harshly.

Just to make it easy, this includes harassing new members who deserve to be harassed - like the folks who join just to post some wingnut political conspiracy.

New members are to be treated with kid gloves, period, no matter how wacky, tasteless, or disturbed they appear to be.

Those of you who have known me for a while know that I really hate this. I really hate to try and legislate away social issues. But I've asked, and I've reasoned, and I've warned, but folks don't seem to be getting the message. And if folks won't willingly be a part of a culture that welcomes new members, we will lay the hammer down. Nobody is bigger than the site.

Super Bowl!

2010-02-05T12:05:00.001-08:00

Oh yeah, it's Super Bowl weekend.

Here is what we have going on at RateItAll

- Rate the 2010 Super Bowl Commercials (coming soon)
- Greatest teams NOT to win the Super Bowl
- Best Super Bowl Food
- Super Bowl Party Guests

And of course, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees are very rate-able.

Improvements to Local Search

2010-02-04T16:45:00.000-08:00

We've rolled out some small, but helpful improvements to our search results page when searching for local businesses. We've added the state or country to the breadcrumb trail, which is helpful when searching for things like Athens Bars (you can now see which one is Athens, Greece, and which one is Athens, GA), and we've also added address, phone number, and map info for local queries. Here's a pic:

If you haven't already...

2010-01-28T14:03:00.001-08:00

... please write a review of Catcher in the Rye:

http://www.rateitall.com/i-17468-the-catcher-in-the-rye-jd-salinger.aspx

In the News: January 27

2010-01-27T17:53:00.000-08:00

After months of build-up, the Apple iPad has launched
President Obama is delivering a State of the Union Address
Howard Zinn, author of the People's History of the United States, has passed away.
Four Arrested Trying to Tamper with Phones at the Office of Senatory Mary Landrieu

In the News: January 21

2010-01-21T18:48:00.001-08:00

Here's what's going on in the news today with the links to the related RIA page:

Haiti
A supreme court decision regarding corporations spending on elections
Scott Brown

Best of the Decade Product Winners

2010-01-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

We've been working hard closing the loop on our Best Products of the Decade awards.

Here is the complete list of Best of the Decade Product Winners:

Automotive

In the ATV category, the winners were the Honda 450R, the Yamaha Raptor, and the Honda Rincon.

In the Motorcycle category, the winners were the Kawasaki Ninja, the Ducati 996, and the Honda CBR.

In the Pickup Truck category, the winners were the Ford F-350, the Ford F-150, and the Chevrolet Silverado.

In the Station Wagon and Minivan category, the winners were the Subaru Outback, the Toyota Sienna, and the Honda Odyssey.

In the Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) category, the winners were the Jeep Wrangler, the Toyota Landcruiser, and the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

In the Sports Car category, the winners were the Chevrolet Corvette, the Ford Mustang, and the Audi TT Coupe.

In the Sedan category, the winners were the Honda Civic, the Honda Accord, and the Toyota Corolla.

In the Motor Oil Brand category, the winners were Walmart Super Tech, Valvoline, and Quaker State.

Beverages

In the Beer category, the winners were Heineken, Guinness, and Corona.

In the Bottled Water category, the winners were Fiji, Aquafina, and Evian.

In the Energy Drink category, the winners were Red Bull, XS, and 5 Hour Energy.

In the Gin category, the winners were Bombay Sapphire, Tanqueray, and Hendrick's.

In the Hard Cider category, the winners were K Cider, Hornsby's, and Woodchuck Amber.

In the Mexican Beer category, the winners were Dos Equis, Pacifico, and Tecate.

In the Orange Juice Brand category, the winners were Tropicana, Florida's Natural, and Minute Maid.

Rum

In the Rum category, the winners were Bacardi 151, Captain Morgan, and Malibu.

In the Scotch category, the winners were Laphroaig 10 Year, Glenlivet, and Lagavulin 16 Year.

In the Tequila category, the winners were Don Julio, Cuervo Gold, and Cuervo 1800.

In the Vodka category, the winners were Grey Goose, Stolichnaya, and Smirnoff.

In the Whiskey / Bourbon category, the winners were Maker's Mark, Jack Daniel's, and Old Grand Dad.

Companies

In the Airline category, the winners were Continental Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and Delta Airlines.

In the Automobile Insurance Provider category, the winners were Progressive, Geico, and Esurance.

In the Bank category, the winners were Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and USBank.

In the Car and Truck Rental category, the winners were Enterprise, Fox, and Avis.

In the Department Store category, the winners were Target, Wal-Mart, and Nordstrom.

In the Cell Phone Service Provider, the winners were Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T.

In the Insurance Company category, the winners were State Farm, Geico, and Nationwide.

In the Jewelry Store category, the winners were Whitehall, Kay, and Finlay.

In the Moving Company category, the winners were NY International, Partner Van Lines, and Moving Staffers.

In the Satellite Internet Access Provider, the winners were WildBlue, DirecWay, and HughesNet.

In the Cable Internet Access Provider, the winners were Road Runner, Comcast, and Charter Communications.

In the Satellite Television Provider, the winners were DirectTV, DISH Network, and Star Choice.

In the Executives category, the winners were Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates.

Education

In the Online University category, the winners were University of Phoenix, Capella University, and DeVry University.

In the U.S. College or University category, the winners were Stanford University, Harvard University, and
Cornell University.

Electronics

In the Mobile Phones category, the winners were the Apple iPhone, the Nokia 5100, and the Nokia 6100.

In the Video Games Systems category, the winners were Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, and Nintendo Wii.

Fashion

In the Clothing Stores category, the winners were Victoria's Secret, Old Navy, and American Eagle.

In the Men's Underwear Brand, the winners were Fruit of the Loom, Hanes, and Calvin Klein.

Fast Food

In the Fast Food Chains category, the winners were Wendy's, Subway, and McDonald's.

In the McDonald's Menu Items category, the winners were Big Mac, French Fries, and McShake.

In the Sit-Down Dining Chains category, the winners were Outback Steakhouse, Olive Garden, and Cheesecake Factory.

In the Wendy's Menu Items category, the winners were Frosty, Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger, and Spicy Chicken Sandwich.

Groceries

In the Frozen Pizza category, the winners were DiGiorno, Freschetta, and Stouffer's.

In the Girl Scout Cookies category, the winners were Thin Mints, Samoas, and Tagalongs.

In the Hot Sauce category, the winners were Baboon Ass, Cholula, and Tabasco.

In the Ice Cream Brand category, the winners were Ben & Jerry's, Dreyer's, and Haagen-Dazs.

Health

In the Cold and Flu Remedies category, the winners were Zicam, NyQuil, and TheraFlu.

In the Diet Products category, the winners were Jenny Craig, Isagenix, and Weight Watchers.

In the Hair Loss Treatment category, the winners were Nioxin, Kevis, and Viviscal.

In the Prescription Blemish Treatment category, the winners were Accutane, BenzaClin, and Duac.

In the Prescription Drugs category, the winners were Vicodin, Viagra, and Ambien.

In the Non-Prescription Blemish Treatment category, the winners were Proactive Solution, ZenMED Derma Cleanse, and Biore Pure.

Home & Garden

In the Laundry Detergent category, the winners were Tide, Gain, and Arm & Hammer.

In the Vacuum Cleaner category, the winners were Rainbow, Oreck, and Dyson.

In the Dishwasher category, the winners were Maytag Jetclean, Whirlpool Gold, and GE Potscrubber.

Personal Care

In the Antiperspirant & Deodorant for Men category, the winners were Drysol, Certain Dri, and Old Spice High Endurance.

In the Antiperspirant & Deodorant for Women category, the winners were Certain Dri, Drysol, and Secret Platinum Protection.

In the Bar Soap category, the winners were Dove, Lever 2000, and Irish Spring.

In the Cosmetics Brand category, the winners were Aloette, Arbonne International, and Mary Kay.

In the Facial Cleanser category, the winners were Noxzema, Neutrogena, and Cetaphil.

In the Fragrance & Cologne for Men category, the winners were Cool Water, Polo Sport, and Drakkar Noir.

In the Fragrance & Perfume for Women category, the winners were Tommy Girl, Pleasures, and CK One.

In the Shampoo Brands category, the winners were Thermasilk, Pantene, and Herbal Essences.

Pets

In the Cat Litter category, the winners were Swheat Scoop, World's Best Cat Litter, and Feline Pine.

In the Dog Food Brands category, the winners were Blue Buffalo, Orijen, and Innova EVO.

Sporting Goods

In the Rifle category, the winners were Remington Model 700, Remington 7MM Magnum, and the Ruger No. 1 Standard.

In the Running Shoes category, the winners were Nike Air Structure Triax, New Balance 702, and New Balance 803.

In the Shotgun category, the winners were Remington Model 870, Mossberg Model 500m, and Ruger Red Label.

In the Skateboard (Decks) category, the winners were Element, Zero, and Alien Workshop.

In the Skateboard Truck category, the winners were Thunder, Independent, and Tensor.

In the Snowboard category, the winners were Burton, K-2, and Lamar.

Tobacco

In the Cigarettes category, the winners were Newport, Malboro Blend No. 27, and Newport 100.

In the Cigars category, the winners were Black and Mild, Philly Blunts, and Swisher Sweets.

In the Smokeless Tobacco category, the winners were Grizzly Smokeless Tobacco, Copenhagen, and Skoal.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Get ready for your trip to the snow

2010-01-18T17:18:00.000-08:00

This is a must have check list for your skiing/snowboarding trip:

For skiers:
Boots - For him and for her
Gloves
Helmets
Jackets - For him and for her
Pants - For him and for her
Skis

For snowboarders:
Bags
Bindings
Boots
Goggles
Ski Wax
Snowboards
Tuning Tools

On MLK

2010-01-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

Lots of places on RateItAll to reflect about Martin Luther King Jr. You can read reactions to his life and work as a leader, as an orator, and of course, the day named in his name.

RateItAll Best of the Decade Awards

2010-01-14T16:17:00.000-08:00

For the past few weeks or so, we've been heads down on a very ambitious project - making sense of ten years of data to determine the RateItAll Best of the Decade Awards. The awards were given over 157 different categories, loosely broken into "Products" and "Culture."

We hosted a small, invitation only event to unveil the data at RateItAll's headquarters.

Here is the presentation from that event - RIA old timers will likely get a kick out of the RateItAll timeline on one of the slides:

RateItAll Best of the Decade Awards Slides

View more presentations from lawrencecoburn.

And here are a few photos that RateItAll's Automatt snapped from the show:

RateItAll's Cimbrel30, who is from Spain, arranged for Tapas to be brought in. They were delicious.

In the News: January 13

2010-01-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

Two big stories today:

- a devastating earthquake in Haiti
- The Google / China showdown

In the News: January 7

2010-01-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

Here is what we have going on in the headlines today, with links to the appropriate RIA page:

- Gilbert Arenas' suspension (note: don't mess with David Stern)
- Google's new "superphone," the Nexus One
- Chris Dodd's planned retirement
- Byron Dorgan's planned retirement
- A pending debrief on the underwear bomber fiasco
- Andre Dawson to the baseball HOF

Camping Gear

2010-01-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

Is your New Year's resolution to get out of the city and enjoy nature a little more? If so, here is a check list with the equipment you need for a safe camping trip:

Camping Chairs
Camping Cookware
Hammock
Lantern
Stoves
Camping Tables
Compasses
Portable Generators
Sleeping Bags
Water Microfilters
Hiking Poles
Tents

Claim Those 2010 Lists

2010-01-06T16:23:00.000-08:00

Word has it that it's a new year.

It's time to crank up those 2010 lists before other people beat you to the punch.

I'm returning with my two mainstays:

Top News Stories of 2010
Top Sports Stories of 2010

And for gosh sake, can somebody please help me with 3 more French beers? It's embarrassing having a list of Top Ten French Beers with only seven beers on it.

(sort of an odd related content selection below, but I'm going to run with it)

Cleaning up some indexes, site might be a little sluggish

2010-01-05T18:14:00.001-08:00

RIA is dragging a bit right now, as we are rebuilding some database indexes. We have more cleanup work planned for later this evening, so tonight might be a good night to take a little RIA breather.

What am I saying?

Soldier on - the site will be functional, if sluggish.

Thanks to the RateItAll Community

2010-01-04T15:05:00.000-08:00

Hi All, just a quick thanks to everyone who participates on RateItAll for a great 2009.

The site went through a lot of changes. Despite how hard it is to adapt to a new site, just about everybody met the changes head on, gave great feedback, bore with us as we worked out the kinks, and went on to master new and improved V3 version of the site.

For those of us regulars that are on the site every day sounding off about movies, drinks, politics, and of course pet food, more people than ever read our reviews. More than 15M people read RateItAll reviews in 2009, and we hope to bump that number up significantly in 2010. Click through to read our year end press release.

We promise not to make any huge changes to the site this year, but also promise to keep tweaking away and making the site tighter, faster, and easier to use than ever. Please, keep your feedback coming.

Thanks again for all of your support, and I hope each and every one of you has a fantastic 2010 (complete with plenty of reviews!).

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T12:55:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone!

New Year's Resolutions
Favorite Things to Do on New Years Day
New Year's Eve Necessities

Christmas Lists

2009-12-24T16:26:00.000-08:00

Check out these holiday related lists we have highlighted for you.

Christmas Carols
Things You Hate About The Holidays
Things You love About The Holidays
Holiday TV Specials

Christmas Traditions
Favorite Things to Do on Christmas Day
Christmas Guffaws

Pushed Some Small Changes to Facebook Sharing

2009-12-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

We just pushed some small changes to how RateItAll reviews show up on Facebook, when you choose to share them with your Facebook friends.

Now, if there is a photo associated with the item or list, that photo will be included when you share the review, item, or list on Facebook. Here's a screenshot of my Facebook page - note the photo of the little Deuce Brand Watch that I reviewed:

I think the photo looks pretty sharp.

I probably only share about 10% of my reviews on Facebook - only the ones that I put a lot of thought into, and the ones that I think my real world friends will appreciate.

The other benefit to me, of course, is that people clicking through on my reviews from Facebook tend to give me lots of helpful votes :) And they don't have to login to do so.

We chose to make our Facebook integration pretty conservative - if you sync your RateItAll account with Facebook, we will prompt you every time if you want to share on Facebook. No auto spamming here. You can also turn off the Facebook connection at any time just by logging out of RateItAll, and then by logging back in using your RIA login (and not the FB button).

It's a neat feature, that's even better now with the photos. I'd encourage you to give a try if you haven't already.

To sync your RateItAll account to Facebook, just click on any of the Facebook links that are all over the site (every item page, list page, home page (sidebar), etc.). Here's a screenshot of the RateItAll logged in home page sidebar, where you can sync up with Facebook, to give you the choice of sharing your RateItAll reviews with your Facebook friends.

The Lists of 2009

2009-12-23T14:15:00.001-08:00

OK, we're closing out another year here on RIA, and I wanted to surface a few of the lists that people have made about this last year of the 00's. Here we go:

Movies of 2009
Baseball HOF 2009 Candidates
Number One Songs of 2009
E3 Video Games of 2009
Events of 2009
2009 Oscar Nominees
2009's Dead Celebrities
Sports Stories of 2009
Obama Report Card 2009

In the News: December 21

2009-12-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

Here are a few events from over the Weekend:

World Leaders, including President Obama, gathered in Copenhagen to sign a new climate deal.

Prime Minister Berlusconi was attacked by a man in Milan, using a replica of the Duomo of Milano as a weapon.

Sadly, our 2009's Dead Celebrities list was joined by actress Brittany Murphy and Oral Roberts.

Finally Avatar came out, and early reviews seem to be very positive.

In the tech world, we heard last Thursday about rumors (via Techcrunch) of Yelp being acquired by Google. As of Monday December 21st, the deal seems to have stalled.

Two Nominations for Rant of the Day

2009-12-17T17:42:00.000-08:00

There were lots of entertaining rants on RIA today. There always are.

But there were two rants in particular that stood out.

1) Irishgit, reviewing his ex Mother in Law. Here's a taste:

"...The second was some kind of denizen of the Seventh Circle of Hell who had taken time out from tormenting poor sinners to inflict herself on earth. She hasn't said a kind word about anyone since the Truman administration, is a full-blown hypochondriac who insists on special treatment for her largely imaginary woes, combines a vicious tongue with an incredibly thin skin, is ignorant in a way that requires considerable effort to maintain, weighs about as much as the John F. Kennedy (the aircraft carrier, not the president) and detests, check that, loathes with every atom of her being, each of her sons or daughters in law...." see the full post.

2) LivUVA's review of Ronald Reagan National Airport. Here's a taste:

"...Yeah, ok, I normally like terminals B and C. They seem to have their $hit together. But on last Friday afternoon, for whatever reason, TSA apparently lacked the normal D team they bring to the airport game and opted for the F team in Terminal A...." see the full post.

Don't hold back folks, tell us how you really feel....

What we Tweeted: December 17, 2009

2009-12-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't follow us on Twitter, here is a summary of our most recent tweets.

Some fun tweets were The Robot Hall of Fame, and the Most Popular Holidays TV Specials.

We also helped our followers to discover The Best Art Museums in the World and to ride public transportation in major cities with The Best Mass Transit Systems list.

For snow-sport fans, we highlighted our guide to The Best Ski Resorts in California. If California is not an option for you, find other resorts on RIA's ski resorts guide.

We also pointed out the passing of Oral Roberts.

National Rate Your Cell Phone Day

2009-12-16T14:36:00.001-08:00

Today is national "Rate Your Cell Phone" Day.

Well, not really.

But given as we have just updated our Best Cell Phone list with a bunch of top new models the LG Cookie, the Samsung Mythic, the HTC Pure, the LG Chocolate Touch, and the LG Shine, we figured we'd take matters into our own hands.

And yes, we also have the Apple iPhone listed, which happens to be the fastest selling gadget in history.

So let's do this - please rate your Cell Phone.

In the News: December 15

2009-12-15T10:20:00.000-08:00

In the news today (with links to the appropriate RateItAll page):

- The women of Tiger Woods (story still going strong)

- The ongoing Health Care debate

- Google is coming out with their own phone - watch this page for Google Nexus reviews

- Roy Halladay is on the verge of signing with the Phillies

- Glee is doing well at the Golden Globes

- Wells Fargo is trying to repay its TARP funds

Big Ad, Small Ad

2009-12-11T16:34:00.000-08:00

Some of us like Big Ads when we browse RateItAll.

And some of like Small Ads.

Rather than make a value judgment on which is better, we've thoughtfully decided to try and please everyone.

If you would like to see Big Ads, all you have to do is log out.

If you would like to see Small Ads, all you have to do is log in.

Go ahead, try it out on this list of Best American Beaches.

Tweeted This Week: 12/11/2009

2009-12-11T16:28:00.000-08:00

Yes, RateItAll has a Twitter account. We have used it pretty sparingly so far, and typically only tweet a few times a day with lists that catch our eye. Here are some of the lists that we tweeted this week:

Best Mass Transit System

Best California Ski Resort

Best Guitarist of All Time

Worst US State Flag?

The Women of Tiger Woods

We also retweeted some of Jedi58's awesome travel reviews of Cairo, Venice, and Naples.

So if you're just getting going on Twitter, please follow us - we'll be interesting, we promise.

Top Rated Christmas Gifts for Men

2009-12-10T13:40:00.001-08:00

One of our interns, Nicholas, spent a good deal of time pulling together a list of top rated gifts for men this season across a variety of different personality types; techie, gamer, etc.

I think he did a great job - check out this full list of Best Christmas Gifts for Men (this also went out as a newsletter).

Flooding the System with Votes (Continued)

2009-12-10T11:53:00.001-08:00

It's fun when a site tweak works as hoped.

Check out this graph of total review votes posted on RateItAll. Can anyone spot the day that we rolled in the voting changes? We'll see if the increased volume holds, but for now, it would appear that this enhancement is exceeding our expectations.

Congrats to RateItAll's design and engineering teams for a job well done.

Getting More Review Votes into the System

2009-12-06T19:22:00.000-08:00

When I take the time to post a review on RIA, it's nice to know that people read it. RateItAll tries to provide a couple of different ways that readers of a review can react to reviews on the site. There's the commenting feature, which I think has been a great addition. There's the compliments feature, which is a little more buried, but which is also a nice way to tell folks that you like what they have to say. And then finally, there is the voting feature, which allows people to vote on if a review is helpful, funny, or if they agree with it.

This last feature has been the source of much entertainment and drama over the years. There are some people who can tell you how many votes they get on a daily, or even hourly basis. There are others who will get enraged if they get a disagree vote. There are some that like to drop funny votes at unexpected times. And finally, there are even those that have undertaken elaborate and sophisticated schemes to get, or give, a few more extra votes than they were entitled to.

This fascination with votes might strike outsiders as odd. Why should we care what others think of our reviews?

I know I care.

I think it has to do with the fact that when you take a time to write a review, it's nice to know that people out there are reading it. Even more than if people find my review helpful or agree with it, I care that they read it. I'll take a "disagree" vote over no vote any day of the week.

So with this philosophy in mind, we are going to try out a couple of different things this week to see if we can get some more votes into the system.

The first change you'll notice later this week is a design change that allows for one click voting. Currently, you have to click a link that says "vote," and then choose your selection. That means it can take up to four clicks to react to a review. This will be changing soon.

The second change has to do with expanding the universe of people who can vote on a review. More on this to follow.

Here are RIA HQ, we are curious as to whether a couple of simple changes can bring more votes into the system. There is only one way to find out.

Related Lists

2009-11-30T11:33:00.000-08:00

Last week, we quietly launched a neat new feature that displays topically related lists on our most popular list pages. The goal is pretty simple - to provide an additional way to discover high quality, entertaining / helpful lists related to the one you are browsing.

For example, on the Mexican Beer list, you will now see a module called "Related Lists" in the upper right hand side. In this module, you can see links to lists like our main Beer Reviews section, the list of drinking games, a list of Mexico Attractions, and our Tequila Ratings section.

This feature is part automated, and part manual. We are rolling it out slowly to high traffic lists on the site, so keep your eyes out for it.

Spam and the Spammy Spammers who Spam Us

2009-11-10T20:53:00.000-08:00

Sigh.

We've spent the last few days battling spammers who are using hundreds of IP addresses to post links to spammy employment, hosting, and pill websites.

These folks are trying to break the Internet. Our small but scrappy team is circling the wagons in attempt to keep our little corner of the web in the Light.

Sadly, today we had to pull the nuclear option on the country of India. Users with IP addresses originating in India will no longer be able to access RateItAll until we can get the spam agencies off our backs.

To friends of RateItAll in India, we hope this is a temporary measure. And we apologize for such drastic measures - we just don't have the resources to continue to fight these spam shops.

And truth be told, it appears that these spam agencies have at least two US companies funding them. We are in the process of seeing what our legal options are for going after the purse strings.

Building out our Art Section

2009-11-06T17:19:00.000-08:00

We're experimenting with a new tool that let's create lists on the fly of pretty much any topic. We're trying it out by building some lists of some of the greatest works by the greatest artists - some of the descriptions might look a little screwy, but the images of the art should be accurate.

Check it out:

Degas Paintings
Kahlo Paintings
Da Vinci Paintings
Rivera Paintings
Van Gogh Paintings

I also used the tool to build out a list of Mexican Presidents - and took a bit more care with the descriptions.

How to Add a Photo to a Review

2009-11-03T10:51:00.001-08:00

We are starting to see more and more photos added to reviews. Photos can be particularly helpful for things like restaurant reviews, travel reviews, and even, beverage reviews.

So how do you drop a photo into a review? There are a couple of ways.

1) Far and away the easiest way is to use our emailed reviews feature. Just look for the "email your review" link on any item page, and attach the image to the email:

One note on this: make sure that you are sending the email from the same email address that is linked to your RateItAll account. If you send it from a different email address, a new RateItAll account will be created.

2) You can use image hosting services like Flickr, ImageShack, or PhotoBucket. Upload your photo to one of those services, and look for the embed code option (similar to embedding a YouTube video).

We will likely be looking at more ways to include photos in reviews. It seems like this might be something that would be handy from a mobile device as well.

Please Welcome our Fabulous New Interns

2009-11-02T14:14:00.000-08:00

All, please take a second and say hi to RateItAll's amazing and talented new interns: Barbara, Yulia, and Nicholas.

They will be helping us get the site ready for the Holiday shopping season, as well as working on our new mobile project (details coming).

List Your Business / Product / Site on RateItAll

2009-10-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

This month, nearly 1.4M people will visit RateItAll.com and many, many more will see RateItAll reviews on other sites.

Putting your product / business / site / blog on RIA is a great way to get more exposure, and to get folks talking about your product.

Listing is free - just use this link.

Here are a few things you get access to by listing your stuff on RateItAll:

You get editorial control over the description, links, and images on the page (alas, not the reviews).

You get access to our cool ratings / testimonials widget for your site. This lets people read and write reviews of your biz / product without having to leave your site. It looks like this:

RateItAllServices Sites

You get access to the "Loved on RateItAll" seal / badge. It looks like this:

You get access to our really cool emailed reviews feature, and an email address just for your business. Try it out by emailing a review of RateItAll.

You also get things like email alerts of new reviews of your business, commenting tools, and RSS feeds for your business' reviews.

The price for all of this is $0.00. We think it's a pretty good deal. Click through to get listed.

Getting More Votes into the System

2009-10-29T15:34:00.000-07:00

One of the things we are looking at right now is how to get more votes (helpful / funny / agree) into the system. Currently, voting on a review is a multiple click process. One click to open the voting box, and then more depending on how you are voting. We are going to try and make this simpler.

The second piece of this is looking at how we might expand the universe of people able to vote on the helpfulness of a review.

As a fairly prolific RIA reviewers, I know I enjoy getting votes and comments on my reviews. Making this feature easier and available to more people should help me (and everyone else) get more votes.

So what are we working on these days?

2009-10-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since we've posted on the blog, and I wanted to check in and let folks know what we've been working on:

Revenue. Yes, we have to pay the bills. The biggest thing we've added recently is pricing information on all of our product pages. You'll notice on any product page, you will now see the best prices from various merchants, as well as pictures of the product. For example, check out the prices on the iPod Touch Reviews page.
Adding Stuff to the Site. Typically, the holiday shopping season is a very important time for RIA, and it's crucial that we have coverage for what people are shopping for. One of the sections that's grown the most recently is our Home & Garden reviews section - take a peek to see the kinds of things we've been adding to the site.
Mobile. We are working on some VERY cool stuff around accessing RIA from your cell phone. Stay tuned.

Finally, we've started to work on getting the Longtail content out of the main river. Our friends at Longtail have an extremely popular video player, which sometimes has a RateItAll ratings plugin attached to it. Everytime someone rates a video, that rating shows up in the main "everyone" river. Our rating plugin is on something like 400K sites, meaning there is a tremendous amount of Longtail activity on the site - way more than we expected. We're working on ways to make this high volume activity, uh, less visible to visitors to RateItAll.com.

That's it for now. We have more good stuff in the pipeline... stay tuned.

RateItAll Mailbag

2009-09-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

We often get entertaining messages sent to us via the web, or via post. Like the RateItAll user plagued by recurring dreams of an offline RateItAll themed nightclub. Or the preacher furious that their default avatar was a serpent.

Here is a polite, handwritten request from Ohio for some tobacco coupons. If only we could grant these sort of wishes :(

RateItAll Economy - On The Rise

2009-09-21T21:53:00.000-07:00

For those of you participating in the RateItAll Economy revenue sharing program, you might want to check your stats. We made a few tweaks, and we are hearing reports of big improvements in earnings.

Messaging Spam

2009-09-08T15:47:00.001-07:00

We are having some problems with a spammer using RateItAll's messaging system to send commercial pitches.

A fix will be pushed shortly, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

I guess it's flattering that a spammer would take the time to write a messaging script just for us - we are oddly touched :)

Major Search Enhancements

2009-09-01T14:20:00.001-07:00

For the last few days, we have been heads down tweaking our search algorithm. Specifically, we have been focusing on 1) prioritizing exact matches for queries in search results; 2) prioritizing listings with lots of reviews over listings with few reviews in the event of duplicate results; 3) doing a better job of handling characters like -,&,', etc.

I think we've made a lot of progress. Check out this query for Jessica Alba - you will now see many exact matches at the top of the results, with the listing with the most reviews coming first. The movie District 9 was impossible to find previously as well - now it's top ranked.

Please help us hammer on this new search algorithm - search for popular items, your own RateItAll nickname, specific lists, etc, and feel free to send us feedback if you feel the search results are not ideal.

I think we've made a lot of progress.

Quick Hitter - Product Label Feedback

2009-09-01T11:56:00.001-07:00

Here's a quick one - a RateItAll member is looking for some feedback for some product label designs. Can you help him?

Reviews via Email - A Case Study

2009-08-26T16:53:00.000-07:00

I've heard this a few times from RIA regulars:

"reviews@rateitall.com is great and all, but why do I need it when I can just post my reviews from the site?"

For regular users, this is a valid point. You usually don't need need to use reviews@rateitall.com unless you want to, although it is far and away the easiest way to post photos with your review, or to add new things to the site.

But here's a case study from my own experience of when the reviews@rateitall.com feature was really, really helpful.

I recently came back from a trip to Tokyo. It was a 12 hour flight, with no wifi. So what did I do? I opened up my laptop and drafted some reviews of each of the amazing things I saw on my trip, and attached photos to each one.

When I was back online, those emails went out and posted instantly.

I use RIA almost as a diary of the things (and my reactions to those things) that I come across during my life. Reviews@rateitall.com is a way to document and capture those moments, even without access to the Internet.

This theme of how to log a moment on RIA even during those times when you are not sitting at your desk with an Internet connection is something I find pretty interesting.

For some of my Tokyo reviews, see here, here, here, and here.

Have a Blackberry, Pre, or an iPhone? You can now post reviews on the go.

2009-08-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

One other aspect of our reviews@rateitall.com feature that we haven't really mentioned - this is a baby step towards making RateItAll a mobile service.

If you have email on your phone, you can now post reviews just by sending an email to reviews@rateitall.com.

Somebody has already figured this out:

Some Coverage for reviews@rateitall.com

2009-08-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

Here are some links to some coverage and more information on our new reviews@rateitall.com feature:

TechCrunch

HyveUp

Press Release

Twitter Stream

reviews@rateitall.com FAQ page

Major Product Announcement

2009-08-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

For the last few weeks, there have been whispers around RIA-land of an important new feature - the ability to post reviews, instantly, via email.

We have just released this feature publicly.

There are two ways to post your reviews via email.

1) The easy way. Look for the "email your review" link on any RateItAll item page. It looks like this:

2) The easier way. Email your review to reviews@rateitall.com

Here's how:

That's it. Of course, you can also attach images to your emailed reviews, and the resizing and formatting happens automagically.

Believe it or not, it was very, very hard to make this feature so easy to use.

Please help us out by hammering on this feature a bit. Send feedback to feedback@rateitall.com (it blasts out to the whole team this way).

Testing a Top Secret Feature

2009-08-06T16:28:00.001-07:00

We are testing a top secret feature on RIA. If you are an RIA regular and would like to help us test, please message me, Automatt, or Lena.

On Off Topic Reviews

2009-08-05T12:16:00.001-07:00

We've been seeing a rash of off topic reviews recently. These are typically very well written and pretty funny joke reviews (or photos) posted on a real product, service, or local business page.

Unfortunately, we need to delete these, per our site rules.

Behind every product, local business, brand, and service provider on the site, there is a real company with real marketing people, and sadly, real lawyers. These people tend to get really pissed off when RateItAll allows our regulars to post jokes on their pages. For these folks, their online brand reputation is no laughing matter.

So if you see your off topic joke reviews of real products, services, brands, and local businesses go up in smoke, this is the reason.

We tend to be much more lenient on the member created lists about whether something is off topic. The beauty of RIA is that you can usually find an acceptable place to post just about anything on your mind.

The five most shared reviews in August

2009-07-29T16:34:00.000-07:00

This is the list of review level pages that were most shared to date in July.

Seaborn Barnes
http://www.rateitall.com/r-2950579.aspx

DirecTV
http://www.rateitall.com/r-3849860.aspx

Marlboro Blend 54
http://www.rateitall.com/r-4319890.aspx

Gates / Cambridge
http://www.rateitall.com/r-4382717.aspx

Ol' Roy
http://www.rateitall.com/r-3915517.aspx

Dreams of RateItAll

2009-07-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

We get a lot of unusual fanmail to RateItAll. We've gotten hand written reviews of products mailed in from Mississippi. We often get notes asking us to "Tell Oprah" this, or "Please tell President Bush to call me." We've gotten cases of energy drinks from marketers confused about who is doing the reviewing.

This one came in this morning, and I thought it was worth sharing. Apparently, a particular RIA reviewer has RIA on the brain so much that it is infected his / her dreams. Here it is:

I had a really weird dream last night that RIA got so huge that they opened up a really swanky hot spot called "The RIA Lounge" in Los Angeles.

It was basically this huge club. It looked almost like a night-club but it was multi-storied and it served food and was open all day. It almost felt like a casino. The whole point was people and companies would petition RIA to allow them to leave their products lying around inside so that patrons could come in, play with them, and then either go home and rate them or rate them right there in the club on the laptops and computers that other companies left inside for the same purpose: exposure, hype, excitement, etc.

Even chefs (up-and-coming and well-established, alike) would take turns churning out the food so that people could rate that as well. There was a huge stage on the top floor in an area that resembled the Palms club in Vegas, where only the coolest new bands would play -- also to get ratings, etc. People couldn't get enough.

Anyway, I showed up one weekend and RIA put me in charge of explaining to patrons what this one product was. Turns out it's pretty hard to explain. But basically, the product was this software program that put people in various scenes. The way it worked was, there were video cameras and monitors planted throughout the club. As people walked around the club, the video cameras put them on the screens -- but the backdrops wouldn't be RIA's club; instead they would be different scenes from around the world. In one, you might see yourself surrounded by tribespeople in the amazon, walking right in step with you through the jungle. In another you'd be in a sea of British redcoats marching in time down a city street. The way the software worked was pretty cool -- the lighting, etc., was perfect so you wouldn't even stand out from the scene were it not for your clothing. It was bizarre, but that was just one of the many cool gadgets that you could check out at this place. And then you'd go and rate it.

Really bizarre.

Bizarre indeed.

Please keep the fanmail coming.

How come you can't subscribe to a city from the new home page?

2009-07-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

We are still digesting feedback on the new home page. Our new registrations were up noticeably yesterday, which I think is a good sign, and which was sort of the whole point - let people play with the site a bit before forcing them to register.

One bit of feedback that we've heard a couple of times:

"How come I can't subscribe to a local directory / city from the new home page?"

The short answer is because we haven't yet hooked up a visitor's geolocation to the site yet. Once we do that, it will be an easy thing to offer each visitor the opportunity to subscribe to reviews of bars, restaurants, and businesses from their home town.

But just because you can't subscribe to your home town from the home page doesn't mean the functionality doesn't exist.

Here's how to add reviews from your home town to your River:

1) Drill down to find your home town's directory on RateItAll - for example, here is the San Francisco directory

2) Click the "Fave" icon - bottom right of this screenshot:

Clicking "Fave" automatically subscribes you to the city's reviews, and if you click your river settings, you can confirm this:

We will continue to look at ways to make it easier to subscribe to the topics you are interested in - not just for non members, but for everyone.

Help us test a new feature?

2009-07-23T09:55:00.000-07:00

Hi All, we just pushed something that we think is pretty cool - it's a new home page (for not logged in users), that shows off some of our amazing "river" functionality. Basically, it lets you easily subscribe to the topics that you are interested in, making your river fill up with not just the posts from people you follow, but also from topics you follow (e.g. Politics, Gadgets, Movies).

Here's how you can help us out with testing.

1) Logout
2) Go to the RateItAll home page, and try clicking on various icons (note how the river updates dynamically each time)
3) when you come up with a combination of topics that you are happy with (and note that you can "view more" on topics to select from 21 different ones), click "Save Your Feed" and then login. Your new topics will then be added to your feed.

I love this new home page - I think it's incredibly interactive, and is a nice show of force for our database. BTW, if you like the icons, tell Lena.

Help us choose RateItAll's Next Feature

2009-07-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, the RateItAll team departed the hallowed halls of RIA Global HQ and Campus, and got on the Bart train for the Carnelian Room - a magnificent restaurant and meeting facility in downtown San Francisco located on the 52nd floor of one of the city's tallest buildings.

The goal was to get offsite for a day, unplug from the daily grind, and talk about what we wanted to be as a website and as a company.

The venue was stunning - we were literally in the clouds, up above even the Transamerica Building, with views of Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Coit Tower.

During the afternoon, we had a session where we went around the table and came up with every idea for "small tweaks" to the site that we felt would make the site better for folks trying to use the site - whether they be writers, readers, businesses, or advertisers.

The session was done in a game format. Each person had 10 seconds to come up with an idea, or be eliminated. The winner got a package of Astronaut Ice Cream (and the loser got a package of Astronaut Ice Cream). Those who came in second, third, and fourth, also got packages of Astronaut Ice Cream.

The output of this meeting of the minds was this list of 82 suggested RateItAll site tweaks. Please rate them based on your opinion of their Priority. 5 = highest priority.

We have a new page!

2009-07-16T15:38:00.001-07:00

We've just launched a Review Success Page. You will only hit this page when writing a review from A) the river; B) an item page; or C) the add a new item page. You won't get this when speed rating from a list page.

We built this page because A) we felt that it would be helpful from an editing / proofreading perspective to see the review you just wrote front and center; B) we could better call out the sharing buttons (FB, Twitter, Email); and C) that having a separate page was a good opportunity to highlight other places to hit on the site.

Here's a screenshot of the review success page:

Add RateItAll to Your Site by Copying and Pasting

2009-06-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

We just launched a new feature that we hope will make adding RateItAll to other sites as easy as copying and pasting.

We're calling this thing the RateItAll Review Widget.

Here's how it works. On every item page on RateItAll (e.g. iPod (widget), Pixar's Up (widget), Abraham Lincoln (widget), Red Bull (widget)), you will now see a little embed icon that looks like this:

Clicking that icon lets you format a little module (widget) that can be pasted onto your blog or website. Don't be fooled by the small size of the widget - you can post reviews into this thing, and you can also read the reviews of others. You can login via your RateItAll or account, or via your Facebook account. It's like a little mini RateItAll to go.

So what are the implications of this? If you are Randyman and write an awesome blog about boxing, you can include reviews of some of the great fights in history on your blog. Or if politics is your thing, you can include reviews of any US President, or any issue from RateItAll controversial list of political issues.

Anyone who has spent time on RateItAll knows we have something for everyone. There are now more than 2.2M little review widgets for your copying and pasting pleasure. Message me with questions.

Here's a widget for Disputed Iranian Election.

Disputed Iranian ElectionEvents of 2009

(Note: if you were using the old widget, replace the old code with the new - it's way better)

Are you on Twitter? Follow RIA's accounts

2009-06-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

Here are some fun Twitter accounts to follow for RIA addicts:

/AllReviews - this account gives you a real time feed (with links) of everything getting rated on the RIA network

/AllComments - this account gives you a real time feed of all new comments

/AllItems - This account gives you a real time feed of all new items added to RIA (minus LongTail)

/AllQuiz - real time feed of all quizzes taken

/RateItAll - Editorially selected pages from RateItAll

One More Big Fix Live

2009-06-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

Since the launch of V3, one of the biggest complaints we've heard from folks who use the site a lot was in regards to the Home / River page.

Here was the problem:

If you paged down a few pages to see recent reviews on the home page, then clicked off on something, and then clicked back on the browser - the page was not remembering that you had paged down. In order to get back to the view you were on, you had to page down again.

This was annoying for a lot of folks.

This is now fixed - please try it out.

Host Maintenance

2009-05-30T13:03:00.001-07:00

Our host is doing some maintenance today and site availability has been sporadic.

I will post an update when I have it.

Best of May

2009-05-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of stats from the month of May:

Top Three Helpful Vote Getters:

Irishgit
edt4
FranksWildYears

Newcomers of Note (follow these folks!)

Gris
Ayn
SK4U2009
quarterhorse51
kat15lee
cinnleigh
darkpalace
irishprincess3279

Most Visited Review / Comments Page:

Torture Should Never be Used (review by Ridgewalker)

Most Visited Member List:

90's Music (jamie mcbain)
(more than 22K people visited the landing page for this, and many more hit item pages on it)

Perfect Review Sharing

2009-05-27T15:44:00.000-07:00

We've spent the last few weeks working very hard on improving the sharing functionality associated with various parts of RateItAll - specifically, Lists, Items, and Reviews.

We've focused our efforts on three ways to share in particular:

- Email
- Facebook
- Twitter

If you look at the top of the right hand column of any List, Item, or Review page, you will now see a "Share This Page" module:

First, let's look at the email sharing option.

Let's say I wanted to share my awesome list of Mexican Beer (which I am very proud of) with my friends via email.

Clicking the envelope icon on my Mexican Beer page pops open the following form:

With this form, I am able to type in email addresses one by one, and include a brief note.

I can also pull in contacts from my address books on services like Yahoo! Mail and Gmail by clicking the "Use Your Address Book Instead" button:

This tool lets you select friends from your address book to receive an email with a link pointing to your list (or item, or review).

Now let's look at Facebook. By now, just about everyone has a Facebook account, and Facebook's newsfeed format is a perfect way to share your lists, reviews, or items with your Facebook friends.

Clicking the Facebook Icon (farthest one on the right), will do one of two things depending on if you are logged into Facebook at that moment:

If you are logged into Facebook, you will see a prompt from Facebook that looks like this:

If you are not logged into Facebook, you will be prompted to login to your Facebook account before seeing the posting prompt above:

When you share a RateItAll story on Facebook, your Facebook profile will look like this:

And when my Facebook friends share RateItAll stories, this is what I see on my Facebook home page:

Now let's talk about Twitter. I know that folks on RIA are a bit skeptical, but this service is taking off like a rocket right now.

Clicking on the light blue "T" icon:

Will automatically open up a new browser window that includes a link to the page (list, item, or review), as well as some text that indicates whether it's a list, item, or review that you are sharing. Here is what it looks like - note that the posting field is pre-populated with the link and text, all you have to do is click "update":

One thing to note - you can share any list, item, or review page to Facebook, Twitter, or Email, whether or not you created the page, and whether or not you are even logged in to RateItAll.

These sharing features are available to everyone, and we hope they will be a great way to get more exposure for your reviews and lists.

Please poke around and let us know what you think.

We just pushed a couple of improvements live

2009-05-26T17:03:00.001-07:00

We just made a couple of enhancements to the site:

- We added perfect sharing tools on every List, Item, and Review page. You can now push out any of these pages with one click to Facebook, Twitter, or Email, whether you are logged in or not. This will be a full post shortly.

- The home page river now remembers what view you were on if you click away, so that if you click back, you don't have to reconfigure your view. For example, let's say you are on your home river / feed page, and have used the filters to isolate just comments. If you click away from your home page, and then click "back" on your browser, you will see the same view that you left - just the comments. The only view state we are not remembering yet is the paging - this will be added soon. Sounds minor, but this is a big improvement.

- We have created a short form URL of all of our item and topic pages that can be more easily shared. Here's an example of the long form URL:

http://www.rateitall.com/i-839549-should-never-be-used.aspx

And here's the short one:

http://rateitall.com/i-839549

- We have fixed some annoying formatting issues when publishing reviews to Facebook - things like apostrophes and quotations should work fine now.

Congratulations to our Book Review Contest Winners

2009-05-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

There are a couple of folks on the site who have realized that by focusing their efforts on a particular category for a day, they can walk home with some serious loot.

Congratulations to:

1) Irishgit
2) Twansalem
3) CinnLeigh

A close honorable mention goes to edt4.

In this particular contest, it took 42 qualifying book reviews to walk home with a $100 Amazon gift certificate. For some of you folks with 2K, 4K, 10K reviews... it would have been child's play to finish in the money.

Don't get me wrong - We are happy to keep shipping gift certificates and loot to Twansalem and Irishgit - both are very strong writers, and write consistently helpful, amusing, and thoughtful posts. But it surprises me that more of you don't lay off the silly stuff and / or the politics for a day, and put your reviews to work.

Prize delivery will go out today, via email.

Congratulations to those who participated.

Dealing with some performance issues...

2009-05-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

.... we're on it. Stay tuned.

Sharing is Beautiful

2009-05-15T10:52:00.000-07:00

For the last few days, we've been working very hard on making RIA reviews more share-able. Some of our work is live on the site, and there will be some more tweaks coming.

Here's an interesting look at the 10 most shared reviews on RateItAll over the past 45 days:

Directv
http://www.rateitall.com/r-3849860.aspx

Tribe of Noise
http://www.rateitall.com/r-3901927.aspx

Canaca Web Hosting
http://www.rateitall.com/r-3921430.aspx

Keith Reid
http://www.rateitall.com/r-3925302.aspx

Camel Snus
http://www.rateitall.com/r-3887130.aspx

University of Phoenix
http://www.rateitall.com/r-3884516.aspx

Panasonic Lumix
http://www.rateitall.com/r-4154474.aspx

Jimmy Swaggart
http://www.rateitall.com/r-1343509.aspx

Wal-Mart Super Tech Oil
http://www.rateitall.com/r-2282764.aspx

Quick Update on Sharing Reviews on Facebook

2009-05-14T17:52:00.001-07:00

If you see a little FB icon in the header like this:

You are good to go, and can pick and choose reviews to push to Facebook.

If you DON'T see that little "F," you need to click the Facebook Logo in the right sidebar on the home page:

Can people please help us test this feature?

Try logging in with both Facebook and your regular RIA login.

Thanks.

Friday Book Review Contest - IT'S ON

2009-05-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

Do you like to read books? Do you read the occasional comic book? Did someone read to you as a small child?

Then you may be well positioned for our Friday Bookworm Smackdown.

You know the drill:

- Any review of a book or author qualifies as long as it's three sentences or more
- Contest runs from Midnight tonight, Thursday, to 11:59PM tomorrow, Friday
- Winners will be determined by number of qualifying reviews within the contest period

send an email to contest@rateitall.com with your RateItAll nickname to participate

Our book section is massively, grotesquely inflated - I bet you will be able to find anything that you might have read.

Prizes:

First: $100 Amazon Gift Certificate
Second: $50 Amazon Gift Certificate
Third: $25 Amazon Gift Certificate

Official contest rules

Contest starts at 12:00AM PT on Friday, May 15th and runs through 11:59PM PT on Friday, May 15th.
Participants must have valid RateItAll member accounts.
Contest participants must register for the contest by sending an email to contest@rateitall.com with their valid and active RateItAll nickname in order to be considered for the prizes.
Reviews must be of books or authors to be considered.
Each quality book review will count as one entry in the contest. Reviews must be at least three sentences.
Recycled or reposted reviews will not be considered for the contest, and use of such reviews will be grounds for disqualification.
Prizes are non-transferrable and are subject to change and availability.
RateItAll reserves the right to discontinue the contest at any time, for any reason. RateItAll reserves the right to disqualify participants if we determine that contest rules have been broken.
Questions about the contest? Email contest@rateitall.com
Winners will be notified on or by Monday, May 18th, 2009.
All decisions made by contest administrators are final.

Want to rate the local businesses in your neighborhood?

2009-05-12T15:37:00.001-07:00

Then shoot me a note. Tell me the town you live in and I will see if we can load up some local biz info for your home town.

We're here to help.

Merge Feature

2009-05-12T14:20:00.001-07:00

We now have an administrative merge feature that allows us to merge identical lists together, as well as identical items.

Because as we all know, duplication is such a drag.

If you're aware of any identical weblists, please let us know...

Share your RateItAll reviews with your Facebook friends

2009-05-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

For a while now, we've offered the ability for new members of RateItAll to sign up using their Facebook login. This allows these new members to pick and choose reviews that they write to share on Facebook with their Facebook friends.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to offer this functionality to existing RateItAll members, because we didn't have the ability to link an older RIA account with a Facebook account.

This is no longer the case.

We've just introduced the ability for anyone to link their RateItAll account to their Facebook account.

Why would you want to do this? Because it lets you easily share reviews with your Facebook friends, giving your reviews more visibility.

The key aspects of the program are as follows:

- it only takes one click to link your RateItAll and Facebook accounts

- you only share the reviews that you want to - each time you write a review, you are given the option of sharing it with your Facebook friends. If you don't want to, you don't have to - I probably only share about one out of ten reviews that I write.

- once you have linked your Facebook and RateItAll accounts, you will be able to login to RateItAll with one click

To link your RateItAll and Facebook accounts, click the Facebook icon on your home page:

Here's what the Facebook prompt looks like after you write a review:

Here's what a shared review looks like on a Facebook news feed:

I really hope that you will try this feature out. One of the fun things about RateItAll is the "instant feedback" aspect of the site. We write things, and people react to our opinions.

This new Facebook feature increases our collective reach to include our Facebook networks. Folks can even "like" and comment on your reviews right on Facebook.

Let me know if you have questions.

Book Review Contest - Postponed One Week

2009-05-07T11:56:00.001-07:00

For the last seven days, our friend and compatriot Automatt has wired himself to an energy drink IV and has been furiously adding books to RIA's database in preparation for the Great Book Review Contest.

He is now adding books, with full descriptions, at the rate of one every seven seconds. He is typing at approximately 4,321,654 words per minute, and hasn't slept since last Thursday.

Astromike, in assessing whether or not he would like to have a beer with Automatt, says it best:

As long as he doesnt bring his lap top to the bar and post list items on RIA all night it could be fun lol. Im sure he's an all right dude. (lol)

Sadly, even at this reckless pace, it looks like we're just not going to be ready for tomorrow.

I've asked Automatt to pick it up all a bit - we should be good to go for next Friday.

In the meantime, for you book readers out there, please start compiling a mental list of books to review. For those who don't read, you still have a week to get started.

More details to follow.

Some Definitions, aka The Most Boring Blog Post Ever

2009-05-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

I thought that people might enjoy a peek into the internal RIA HQ nomenclature that we use to describe things on the site.

(editor's note: this is boring)

Here it is:

Definitions:

Reviewer – Registered user

Rating – Value: 1-5

Review – Text associated with a rating

Comment – Response or reply to a review

Item – Something that can be rated (e.g. person, place, thing, Corona, etc.)

Topic – A grouping of items (e.g. Mexican Beer), otherwise known as a list or a weblist

Subject – A collection of topics (e.g. Drinks)

Book Review Contest on Friday

2009-05-04T22:09:00.000-07:00

We've done movies.

We've done music.

We've done local businesses.

This Friday will be books... more details to follow.

Speed

2009-04-30T19:16:00.001-07:00

The RateItAll dev team has been working very, very hard at making RIA fast.

And I think it's very fast now - as fast as it's been.

I hope you all are seeing the same thing.

You can now see item descriptions on the list pages

2009-04-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, inspired by the RIA movie review contest, I wrote a review of the Sandra Bullock coming of age, romantic comedy "28 Days." Among other things I said:

The empty London scenes were the best, and spastic, fluid spewing zombies are certainly more effective than the slow moving sort.

Some have suggested that I may be confusing the Sandra Bullock film with 28 Days Later, about a zombie outbreak in London. This is debatable, and neither here nor there.

What I would like to talk about today is a design tweak we just rolled out that lets you see item descriptions (text, photo, video, etc.) when rating from a list page. This feature might prevent people from getting confused about exactly what item they are rating while on the list page.

Check out this screenshot of my Flight of the Conchords video list.

If I click "Review It!" you will see that the first item on the list snaps down to display the description - in this case, a video.

I think rating from the list pages will be much easier now, especially for items that have images, descriptions, and / or videos.

Music Contest Prizes Just Went Out

2009-04-24T10:12:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to OscarGamblesFro, Irishgit, and Frankswildyears - Amazon gift certificate just went out.

Speaking on behalf of the entire RIA community, we expect to see reviews of whatever Amazon product you buy.

A couple of site updates

2009-04-24T09:59:00.001-07:00

Two days ago, we rolled in some optimizations to the home page / river that vastly sped the page up for most people.

However, we learned that folks who had subscribed to multiple keywords were seeing some timeouts - this was fixed last night, so now everyone should be seeing a faster home page while logged in. While logged out, we have the home page loading in under 0.2 seconds, which is as fast as its ever been.

Yesterday, we rolled in some optimizations to the list page - these pages should now be loading rocket fast for everyone. Even some of our notorious Crunchbase lists which have 17K items are loading pretty quickly.

Today, we're going to be taking on the item page - once we get done with that, I think we're going to have a pretty fast site.

Finally, we made some small tweaks to the AdSense revenue sharing code yesterday - please let us know if you see improvements in your daily AdSense numbers.

Congratulations to our Music Review Contest Winners

2009-04-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

Our top finishers in the music contest were:

1) Oscargamblesfro

2) IrishGit

3) FranksWildYears

Prizes will go out by the end of the week.

Now that Twansalem has a Netflix account, he can't be bothered to participate in our contests.

As has been the case with our previous two reviews contests, I found to the quality of the reviews to be very, very high.

Here is a taste:

Couple of Changes to the List Page

2009-04-20T17:20:00.001-07:00

You may have noticed a few changes to the list page.

The two most important are:

1) the introduction of a "confidence score" which is the default view

2) bringing back the number rankings associated with each item (1, 2, 3, etc.)

The Confidence Score reflects how confident we are that the rating is statistically significant. It takes into account a number of different factors like number of ratings, and the distribution of those ratings. The math is actually pretty complex.

For example, check out the beer page. Under the old view, the default view was dominated by a lot of obscure beers with one five star rating apiece.

With our new Confidence Score, you'll see a lot of beers that you've heard of, ordered by how confident we are in the accuracy of the rating:

We are NOT saying the Bud Light is the fifth best beer in the world. We are simply saying that we have a high degree of confidence that Bud Light's rating of 3.05 is accurate.

The practical effect of introducing the Confidence Score is 1) You won't see an item with one 5 star rating outranking an item with 200 ratings and an average score of 4.33; and 2) Our lists will be a bit harder to game

We've also rolled in a few optimization enhancements that seem to be making the site a bit faster.

Music Contest - It's ON

2009-04-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

There are some amazing music reviews coming in as we speak, and still plenty of time left to do some damage.

Who's in?

Email: contest@rateitall.com

Music Review Contest Smackdown - Friday, April 17

2009-04-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the week again.

We've done local businesses. We've done movies.

And now we're doing music.

The contest will run from 12:00AM PST tonight, to 11:59PM PST tomorrow night.

Here's how to participate:

1) send an email to contest@rateitall.com with your RateItAll nickname
2) start rating Music (musicians and / or albums) tonight at midnight. I recommend our Best Buy channel as it has just about everything.

Winner will be determined by the total number of qualifying reviews in the 24 hour period.

Qualifying Reviews Are:

- at least three sentences long
- of a real band or musician, or a real album

Prizes:

1) $75 Amazon or iTunes gift certificate
2) $25 Amazon or iTunes gift certificate
3) $10 Amazon or iTunes gift certificate

Finishers in the Top Ten will get a RateItAll Demon Star Schwag Package (T-Shirt, stickers, pins).

Official contest rules

Contest starts at 12:00AM PT on Friday, April 17th and runs through 11:59PM PT on Friday, April 17th.
Participants must have valid RateItAll member accounts.
Contest participants must register for the contest by sending an email to contest@rateitall.com with their valid and active RateItAll nickname in order to be considered for the prizes.
Reviews must be of albums or musicians to be considered.
Each quality movie review will count as one entry in the contest. Reviews must be at least three sentences.
Recycled or reposted reviews will not be considered for the contest, and use of such reviews will be grounds for disqualification.
Prizes are non-transferrable and are subject to change and availability.
RateItAll reserves the right to discontinue the contest at any time, for any reason. RateItAll reserves the right to disqualify participants if we determine that contest rules have been broken.
Questions about the contest? Email contest@rateitall.com
Winners will be notified on or by Monday, April 20th, 2009.
All decisions made by contest administrators are final.

Movie Smackdown Wrap-Up

2009-04-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

The KPMG auditors have finally left the Global RIA HQ after a grueling 48 hours of sifting through and analyzing movie reviews for authenticity, quality, and depth.

The results are now in, the volunteers have gone home, the press have moved on to the next big story, and things are returning to a degree of normalcy here.

I am pleased to announce that Twansalem has won his first RIA review contest, authoring over 100 quality movie reviews in just 24 hours. Here's a sample - a review of the the teen remake of Cruel Intentions:

Irishgit staged a late rally but ran out of hours. For a taste of IG's work, check out the following:

For a few hours in the afternoon, a time rich law student named SperryC made a big push as well. If he had been able to keep up this level of production for a few more hours, he may have finished in the money. Here's a taste of his reviews:

We had a lot of fun at RIA HQ watching the movie reviews roll in, and a number of us jotted down movies that we'd like to see (as well as some that sound just awful).

We're going to try and run a Music Review contest on Friday. Hopefully some of you wall flowers will get out there and dance this time.

Thanks to all that participated, and prizes and t-shirts will go out this week.

Movie Smackdown: Unaudited Results

2009-04-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

I've done a quick tally and it looks like Twansalem has held off Irishgit for first prize in the movie review contest.

These results are unofficial still - I will try and do a more official pronouncement tomorrow.

Congratulations to all the participants - I thought the quality of the reviews was very high, and it was neat to see movie titles getting unearthed that we hadn't seen in a while.

This was a fun contest, and I think we should do more.

Less than Six Hours Left in the Movie Review Smackdown

2009-04-10T18:28:00.001-07:00

There is some serious drama unfolding on RIA in our movie review contest.

Twansalem awoke early and blazed off to a huge lead, perhaps thinking that shock and awe would dissuade other wannabe contestants.

But alas, things would not be so easy.

Twansalem's furious start awoke the sleeping RIA giant, Irishgit who has stormed back with quality review, after quality review. Amazingly, Irishgit briefly took his eye off the ball to participate in a vicious flame war about white poultry meat versus dark. We'll see if this detour costs him.

And just when it looked like a two horse race, a slacking, third year law student, with nothing but time on his hands, has joined the fray.

With under six hours left to play, it looks like three contenders. But if we've learned anything today, things can change in a hurry.

Is there a late burst left from anyone? Will Zuchinibut get serious? Will Numbah put his money where his mouth is? Will Cyclee get off the sidelines? Can Edt4, one of the top movie reviewers on the site, limit himself to three sentences?

In a few short hours we will know the answers to these questions.

50 Minutes Until Game Time

2009-04-09T23:09:00.000-07:00

Movie smack down begins in 50 minutes.

Send an email to contest@rateitall.com to participate.

Import Your Netflix Ratings to RateItAll

2009-04-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

We now have a feature that lets you import your Netflix ratings and reviews into RateItAll.

Here's how to do it:

1) login

2) go to Home

3) in the right sidebar, click the Netflix logo

Just Because You See a "Buy It!" button.....

2009-04-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

.... doesn't mean we're selling it.

We've recently added some helpful "Buy It!" buttons to our list pages. This makes it easy to shop on Amazon for products that have been rated highly on RateItAll. In some cases, this can be very useful.

For example, on this list of children's / fantasy books, the "Buy It!" button makes it easy to get from here:

To here:

In some cases, the "Buy It!" button makes a bit less sense. For example, in our drug awareness section, some people might be mislead by the "Buy It!" buttons next to "Crack Cocaine."

We do not sell things like Crack, Heroin, or Anabolic Steroids. Nor does Amazon, as far as we know. And we have no plans to sell such items in the future.

24-Hour Movie Review Contest Throw Down - FRIDAY

2009-04-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

Calling all movie buffs, cinephiles and Netflixters...Get in on our 24-hour cage match movie review contest, with cool prizes to boot!

Write Movie Reviews on RateItAll.com and Win Free Stuff.

How do I get in on the action - it's easy!

Send an email to contest@rateitall.com with your RateItAll Nickname
Start reviewing movies on RateItAll (any movie title is fine, but it has to be a movie)
Contest runs for 24 hours this Friday, April 10th (12:00AM to 11:59PM)

What kind of cool prizes?

Winners will be determined by the total number of qualifying movie reviews (3 sentences or more)
Grand prize is a six month Netflix subscription! That's over $100 worth of free movie rentals!
Second prize is a $25 gift certificate from Amazon.
Plus, all 1st through 5th place participants win a stunning, RateItAll happy demon star t-shirt!

You get the idea, now rest up for Friday. Tick tock, tick tock...just 24 hours so don't delay!

Official contest rules

Contest starts at 12:00AM PT on Friday, April 10th and runs through 11:59PM PT on Friday, April 10th.
Participants must have valid RateItAll member accounts.
Contest participants must register for the contest by sending an email to contest@rateitall.com with their valid and active RateItAll nickname in order to be considered for the prizes.
Reviews must be of movies to be considered. Members can submit only one review per movie.
Each quality movie review will count as one entry in the contest. Reviews must be at least three sentences.
Recycled or reposted reviews will not be considered for the contest, and use of such reviews will be grounds for disqualification.
Winners will be determined as follows: (1st) First prize and t-shirt - Six month Netflix subscription will be rewarded to the participant with the most entries during the contest period. (2nd - 5th) Second through Fifth prizes - RateItAll t-shirts will be rewarded to the participants with the 2nd-5th most entries during the contest period.
Prizes are non-transferrable and are subject to change and availability.
RateItAll reserves the right to discontinue the contest at any time, for any reason. RateItAll reserves the right to disqualify participants if we determine that contest rules have been broken.
Questions about the contest? Email contest@rateitall.com
Winners will be notified on or by Monday, April 13th, 2009.
All decisions made by contest administrators are final.

Claim Your Blog on RateItAll

2009-04-07T16:54:00.000-07:00

We've recently introduced "claiming" functionality on RateItAll for blogs, websites, and local businesses. If you have a blog listed on RateItAll in our blog directory (as I know a number of you do), click the green button that says "This is my Business."

All sorts of wonderful things happen when you do this:

- You will have editorial control of the pictures, links, and description associated with your blog listing
- You will be able to grab one of our GORGEOUS "Loved on RateItAll" badges, as seen in the sidebar of this blog, or in the screenshot below
- You will be able, if you want to, to buy additional exposure for your blog, local business, or website

Claiming your blog is free, as are the badges. Let me know if you get stuck.

If you have not yet added your blog to RateItAll, you can do so here.

Sweet, glorious comment editing

2009-04-07T16:24:00.001-07:00

It has been *suggested* a number of times that people might appreciate the ability to edit and delete comments that they have posted on a review.

This feature is now live.

Try it out! Say something nasty in a comment, take a deep breath, and then edit or delete it.

Movie Review Cage Match - DELAYED

2009-04-01T23:36:00.000-07:00

We have decided to delay our 24 hour, movie review cage match until next week so we can do it right.

Stay tuned for more details.

Quick Hitter Movie Review Contest - a 24 hour cage match

2009-04-01T10:24:00.001-07:00

On the heels of our Local Biz review contest in which Irishgit walked away with the big haul, we are going to try a slightly different format.

A 24 hour cage match movie review contest. Winner gets a six month Netflix subscription and a stunning, RateItAll happy demon star t-shirt. 2nd through 5th places will also get t-shirts.

The contest will begin at 12:00AM San Francisco time tomorrow (Thursday), and end at 11:59PM the same day.

My suggestion is this: stop what you're doing right now, and make sure the fridge is stocked with Red Bull or other caffeinated beverages (click through for energy drink reviews).

Then, go to sleep. Tomorrow will be an epic battle of endurance.

More details to follow.

Quizzes

2009-03-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

RateItAll Compatibility Quizzes are little ratings games that show how you compare to other folks around the world of RIA.

For example, the beer compatibility quiz asks you to rate a variety of different beers, and then cranks out a compatibility score with others who have taken the quiz.

For example, GenghisTheHun and I are 40% beer compatible, with our biggest difference of opinion being around Corona - I think it's a good hot weather beer, and GTH thinks it's "Miller Lite for the upscale moron."

Recently, I've noticed more people taking the quizzes, which doesn't surprise me as they're pretty fun.

We've just rolled out a small, but important change to the quizzes - the paging is now on the bottom of the page, instead of the top, which makes it far easier to find quizzes you are interested in.

We have well over 100 quizzes - hopefully something for everyone. And now they're much easier to browse.

Is Your Town Represented on RateItAll?

2009-03-30T14:57:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite features on RateItAll is the ability to rate any business in the world, whether it's already listed in our database or not.

I've been able to rate businesses from the smallish town where I grew up (Villanova, PA), and I've noticed other reviewers taking advantage of this tool to put their own home towns on the RateItAll map - places like Solon, Iowa and New Westminster, British Columbia.

If you want to make sure RIA has a directory for your home town, this is all you have to do:

1) Rate a business from your town by using this link.

That's it. Once the new business is approved, RateItAll will magically build out a directory for your town, ensuring it is represented in RateItAll-Land.

As the kids say.... represent!

My Compliments to the Reviewer

2009-03-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

We've just introduced a new feature - Compliments. This is a replacement for the old Testimonials feature, that allows you to give a public pat on the back to other reviewers. This compliment will show up on their profile page.

All compliments are deletable by the owner of the profile page, and retractable by the poster. As we say here at RateItAll's Global HQ Compound, "What have you done for me lately?"

Here are some screenshots:

So go ahead.... reach out and give your favorite RIA reviewer a compliment today.

Wrapping Up the Local Biz Review Contest

2009-03-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Irishgit for winning both the quantity and quality scores in our recent Local Business Review contest.

He wrote the most qualifying reviews by a long shot, with over 5000 points, and narrowly beat out Twansalem for the single most helpful review. His haul? A Flip Video Camcorder and a $50 gift certificate to the restaurant of his choice.

Newcomer GinaKristie also deserves mention for her reviews of Wichita local businesses, and we had a number of folks win t-shirts.

I was a bit surprised that more folks didn't make a play for the gift certificate - all it took was a single review of a local business to qualify.

But I guess in these booming economic times, a $50 gift certificate is no big deal :)

We will be sending out prizes today or tomorrow, and Irishgit, we'll be waiting for that Flip Camcorder review.