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Overstock's Community Portal
Overstock.com has launched a community portal where they hope their customers will write “guides” about things that they’re passionate about. Seems like an interesting idea. I’ve wondered about the ability to harness people’s passion to create customer service sites that are more useful than those run by the company.
Interestingly it’s built on MediaWiki which I think is a great platform, but a little hard for wiki novices to use. I wonder if they’ve done something to make page editing any easier.
I’m wondering rather than looking because when I went to sign up for an account, they wanted a credit card. Uh-uh. Way too much friction. You can skip it, but that ought to be the default, not an opt-in option.
Posted by windley on February 6, 2007 7:43 PM
Comment from Tom Dalton at February 7, 2007 10:46 AM
More and more companies seem to be jumping on the 'social networking' bandwagon, but I think there's a couple points they're missing.
Why would anyone want to create a 'guide' locked into Overstock? Overstock has created the potential social networking space, but there's no incentive for me to use it.
A few possible incentives might be ease of use, prestige, or actual rewards from the company. Frankly, it's easier for people to create their own blogs on any of a dozen other platforms, and then they have full control over them.
Big O's attempt to address the prestige aspect is summed up in their "Hottest Guides" section -- "Is your guide one of the hottest on Omuse? Keep checking back to see if yours is on top!" But Amazon has similar features with a broader user base, so if I want prestige, that's a better place to start. And 'street cred' won't come from an Omuse Guide on Overstock. It's hard to imagine who might decide the best use of their time is to create one of these.
And actual rewards? Not apparently. No revenue sharing, no tie into the affiliate program that I can see. (Though that would be an easy move, and would help them be at least a little more competitive with Amazon.)
I vote "stinker." And maybe 10,000 rabid, reason-defying Overstock fans will prove me wrong.
Comment from a guy at February 7, 2007 7:11 PM
Your concern about Overstock asking for credit card info to participate in their wiki is more well-founded than you probably realize.
Judd Bagley, Overstock's director of social media and the person responsible for the "community portal", has been raising a ruckus in online forums because of his propensity for using webbugs in messages and emails to attempt to gather information on critics of his employer, sometimes in direct violation of the AUP of those forums. In addition, until recently, he was anonymously authoring articles on antisocialmedia attacking and revealing personal information of critics of his employer.
Judd's activities have been condoned by his CEO, but ironically are prohibited by Overstock's "Terms and Conditions".
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