Comments on: What’s needed in a review microformat http://yardley.ca/2005/04/27/whats-needed-in-a-review-microformat/ greg yardley on online product management Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:04:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Sean O'Rourke http://yardley.ca/2005/04/27/whats-needed-in-a-review-microformat/comment-page-1/#comment-99 Sean O'Rourke Wed, 27 Apr 2005 15:09:58 +0000 http://yardley.ca/merge/?p=58#comment-99 I have been thinking about this for some time, so it is cool to finally see it discussed. While it would be great for publishers to have a profit-sharing, I think the more likely scenario is traffic-sharing, which leads to indirect profit-sharing. A few of the challenges of automated profit-sharing: 1) Network Effect - or lack thereof. If implementation/negotiation is difficult, aggregation will fail the 'critical mass' test. 2) Source Quality - traffic-sharing will attract some spam over time, but profit-sharing could attract a flood of spam from Day One. 3) Source Issues - aggregators in some countries could be prohibited by law from paying publishers in other countries, for example. 4) Google - Froogle already aggregates reviews, and Google is none too keen on licensing, which could shape the aggregation landscape. http://froogle.google.com/froogle/reviews?hl=en&fq=ipod&cid=919942312d354c8b All of this is not to say you could not have the profit-sharing option, but it could eliminate the automated discovery and inclusion of sources. Who knows, perhaps that is the natural progression, and it is the automated crawling of un-reviewed sources that is not natural in this case... However, if it turns out that traffic-sharing is the natural progression, there is still plenty of room for publisher control of content aggregation. Specifically, I'm thinking of a character limit on the main review section, and perhaps an optional no-aggregate attribute for each tag, for starters. But no matter if it is profit-sharing or traffic-sharing, you are correct to highlight the key issue: both sides need to have the tools to negotiate a win/win aggregation relationship, of this is simply not going to work. I have been thinking about this for some time, so it is cool to finally see it discussed. While it would be great for publishers to have a profit-sharing, I think the more likely scenario is traffic-sharing, which leads to indirect profit-sharing. A few of the challenges of automated profit-sharing:

1) Network Effect – or lack thereof. If implementation/negotiation is difficult, aggregation will fail the ‘critical mass’ test.

2) Source Quality – traffic-sharing will attract some spam over time, but profit-sharing could attract a flood of spam from Day One.

3) Source Issues – aggregators in some countries could be prohibited by law from paying publishers in other countries, for example.

4) Google – Froogle already aggregates reviews, and Google is none too keen on licensing, which could shape the aggregation landscape.

http://froogle.google.com/froogle/reviews?hl=en&fq=ipod&cid=919942312d354c8b

All of this is not to say you could not have the profit-sharing option, but it could eliminate the automated discovery and inclusion of sources. Who knows, perhaps that is the natural progression, and it is the automated crawling of un-reviewed sources that is not natural in this case…

However, if it turns out that traffic-sharing is the natural progression, there is still plenty of room for publisher control of content aggregation. Specifically, I’m thinking of a character limit on the main review section, and perhaps an optional no-aggregate attribute for each tag, for starters.

But no matter if it is profit-sharing or traffic-sharing, you are correct to highlight the key issue: both sides need to have the tools to negotiate a win/win aggregation relationship, of this is simply not going to work.

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