Recently, one of our clients, Avvo, launched ratings and reviews. You can now rate and review lawyers online. I know because I was emailed by one of ours, Clay Arendes, as soon as Avvo went live. I gladly wrote a review on the wonderful service we have received from him for almost two years now. Although I marinate in Web 2.0 daily, the act of writing a review on Clay made me realize something: I write more reviews on people than I do on products.
It is always dangerous to make any conclusions based on only your own behavior. You need to look no further than the failure of Webvan, which raised $1 billion based on the premise that everyone in the U.S. was like San Franciscans. But I still find it fascinating that I am more compelled to write about people than products. Perhaps it is the nature of my job or personality type. Or perhaps most of us talk more about people (i.e., generating more word of mouth) than products in everyday life. Let’s not forget how many Americans voted on the last American Idol (74 million in the last round).
