Improving The "Reviews" Section Of The Site
One of the most underused section of TCI, in my opinion, is the "reviews" section. There are so many books, systems, gurus, etc for real estate out there that it's overwhelming, especially in the begining. It's not always easy to separate the good stuff from the crap. The sensationalistic material from reality. The closest thing newbies have to go on is www.Amazon.com's reviews (though not bad) and the likes of John T. Reed (and most of us already have our opinions of him). I think that this section could potentially be invaluable, but could be improved by:
1. Categorize it by type, e.g.:
-Book (title)
-Author
-Seminar/Speaker
-Real Estate Program (Books, CD's, etc, like Carleton Sheets)
-Websites
-Software
-Company
-etc.
2. Categorize it by one or more topics that it relates to:
-General Real Estate
-Wholesaleing
-Lease Option
-Subject to
-Property Management/Landlording
-Building/Developing
-Mobile homes
-Apartments
-Financing
-Commercial property
-Rehabing
-etc.
3. Allow you to search or browse by product type, category, or rank (sort of like www.cnet.com and www.amazon.com)
4. I think that it should be made more clear that when you reply to a review and rate it that you are rating the PRODUCT not the original review (as is done for articles). Readers should also be allowed to rank it with a "no opinion" if they'd like to respond, but don't know much about the product.
5. As long as we're keeping score on the site, it might add some incintive to users to review products and gurus if they get a point or two added to their posts. As I write this there are only 46 reviews that have been posted.
6. Allow additional information to be posted for users that want to learn more about it (ISBN #, web sites, etc). Granted, this will open it up for abuse and may necessitate moderaters in the future, but I think the benefit will be tremendous.
7. Lastly, TCI can use this as another profit source to either sell more products directly from this section (have a "buy this product now" button) or get paid for "click-throughs" to other websites that do sell the product or service in question.
As always, thanks for all that you do Joel.
I agree with you 1000%. I find the Shop section very confusing and have difficulty finding things that I know are there. It makes sense to categorize the products, where possible, according to the Forum topics.
We will be revamping the Product area when we have our new theme coming soon.
The new theme will include New and Used products.
One key point is that people have to actually take the time to review the product. Most don't. Take John Locke's Subject to Training Manual. There have been near 400 purchases of it from TCI, yet there are only 5 reviews.
Out of all of the products on TCI, there are only 47 reviews.
Roger
What about an auto e-mail that goes out say 5 days or a week after purchase, soliciting a review? It could have a link right back to the review section.