Snapshot Post--Mini-Musings on The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly Oyster or Imposter: How do You Know for Sure?

For a moment imagine that Britney Spears sends a Tweet to her 2.3 million followers asking them to go to TripAdvisor.com and post a vitriolic (would she use that word?) review of a hotel that failed to meet the pop Diva's expectations. If even 1/10 of one percent of them carried out this hypothetical mission, would the wisdom of the crowd concept have been compromised?

Absolutely, and "compromise" is perhaps a neutral term. How about "malicious manipulation?" While it may not be happening with Ms. Spears (that was just a colorful example), some observers believe it's happening a lot out there on the social media frontier, especially with individuals and organizations harboring a grudge or looking for a quick promotional punch for their product or service.

The notion of fair, balanced and accurate information coming from the impressionable and untrained minds of the crowd is a hot topic among marketers and social media anthropologists. Seems the activity of rating and reviewing "stuff" has become immensely popular, not to mention the foundation of collaborative filtering portals such as TripAdvisor.com, Hotels.com and countless other consumer review sites.

But can the wisdom of the unwashed masses match the supposed clarity, fairness, and accuracy of a well-trained few? Asked another way, what would you trust more, the aggregated metrics of 200 people with names like WingDingGuy79 who stayed at a particular hotel over the last few months, or the ratings and comments of a handful of experienced travel writers with profiles and credentials that can be viewed and verified?

Enter Oyster.com, a hotel review site that was launched last week to compete against the raw reviews of sites like TripAdvisor.com. The folks at Oyster are using tried and true journalistic techniques, with their own trained reporters exploring the nooks and crannies of a hotel property, taking photos and offering carefully considered ratings and comments. Like the sites that rely upon the wisdom of amatuers, Oyster.com reporters stay in the hotels they rate and check out the particulars that tend to matter most to travelers. But are the reviews really any better or more helpful than reviews posted by experienced travelers sharing their feedback on Hotels.com?

Seems the real question has to do with the credentials, experience, and perspective of the reviewer. There's no question in my mind that I would give more credibility to the review of an experienced business traveler with 20-years of business travel under his belt than I would a 22-year old journalism school graduate from who knows where doing this as a first job out of college. But how can you know for sure?

If this kind of social media is going to be really useful, we may need to have online review sites warrant that their reviewers are real by sharing some personal information about them. Information that gives the reader context. Oyster.com certainly hopes that their business model will be one solution. Meanwhile, did you read about that horrible hotel Britney stayed at last week. Read more...