Being increasingly part of the action over at Homestars, a consumer review startup, I can't help but be more conscious of my own usage of these kinds of sites.

I know that before I arrived on the scene, Nancy and the team thought of TripAdvisor as a major source of inspiration. This site is indeed truly mind-boggling in comparison to what else might be out there. Carolyn and I are researching our winter holiday (we might do something in December, earlier than usual), and on this one resort in Jamaica we're looking at, they have 185 reviews! 185!

But man, I gotta tell you, from some of these reviews, you really don't know what to think. Some of them are very, very long... which helps you to get a sense of the people. There is that subset of "finicky travelers" who are never satisfied. If that's not you then you need to tune these people out. The family from London, UK, who didn't like how noisy the tree frogs were in paradise, for example.

Next up is my pals down the road in Sarnia (that happens to be my sister's birthplace, and one of my former homes). This family was so smitten by the beauty of the place that you had to shake yourself and go "wait, they're describing the reason we always go to the Caribbean - the water, the beach, the setting... beautiful, perfect." Also attainable in Cuba, St. Kitts, and so forth. Not to be jaded or anything but they swung to the other extreme - people who were heretofore unaware of the charms of Caribbean waters.

In the end, many of these online reviewers do not resemble people you'd take advice from. So much so, that our last holiday - on the strength of no reviews, but just based on the fact that the package was selected by G.A.P. Adventures (Isla Holbox, Mexico)... turned out that as expected it was a great experience and a well chosen venue... because that's what G.A.P. does. Reviews only take you so far.

So... to conclude. Online reviews have a long way to go. The constant struggle with these admittedly useful sites is: how can we get them closer to offline "like a friend" word of mouth. Sites have various devices like trusted reviewer ratings, or the simpler and easily gameable "x of x readers found this review helpful." These efforts to better replicate real-life word-of-mouth are essential, but are thus far thin gruel. Think about it: some person you don't respect might rant and rave about the horrible deal they got on a hardwood floor, just because they're cheap. Someone else might over-praise the guy just for showing up and talking it over with them - forgetting about the inflated profit margin on the overpriced job quote. By and large, though, even though the comments may be imperfect, as long as they're not fake, they mean a lot, because they shine a light on businesses, and clearly shoddy work will be met with lots of screams.

By way of moving along the continuum from "nice to have" to "really valuable word of mouth", I feel like I need to dedicate myself to cracking that code on an ongoing basis if I'm going to plunge into this field at Homestars.

Here's where it seems to be headed. Online word of mouth gets closer to real word of mouth when you feel you "know" the people making the comments. That is, you may read a review and feel like it's made up, or just not quite ringing right. One way to approach that is to build in various "controls" and "safeguards" against B.S. reviews. You can get goaded into that and blow a ton of cash on extra efforts forcing your editorial staff to track people down on the phone, etc.

But really, it needn't be that impersonal (just letting 'em sit there) or that complicated (having an extensive system of controls, or the old-media big-media naysayers are allowed to give themselves carte blanche to trash the whole concept of user empowerment online, and threaten you with imminent hoodwinking). If there is a way to turn this into rough-and-ready social networking, you just open that up. That way a combination of "posts" and "taking it offline into PM" etc. gives people the connection they seek. That isn't all that new, so this decade at least, let's not pour endless efforts into perfecting a "posting perfection" system, when a system of checks and balances that allows members of your community to "hook up" will give them the experience they want.

Failing that, editorial content continues to mean a great deal. Real experts and articles by pros are going to carry weight, no question. How do we balance the power and passion of the demos with the wisdom of experts? By making sure both kinds of expertise and input have a platform.

The need for communities of users to share information doesn't require you to build the next Friendster. (Homester?) At a minimum, basic message board, membership, forum type technology will get it done - I've seen it in action on sites dedicated to investing, fitness, etc - mission-critical conversations of people helping people - hopefully not the blind leading the blind! - but at least like-minded people willing to dig their own graves together because they're not getting the help they need anywhere else. Perhaps, on posts, it's a good idea to allow members to leave their google or yahoo instant messenger contact info to permit other users to contact them with questions as to the veracity of their review, identity, etc. - and the trust score goes up for members who do open themselves up in that way. But easier is having a common registration system with the standard "Private message" functionality available to those who want it. Imagine the possibilities. A home improvement site could become a dating site. That's what happened on the investing sites in the 1990's :) j/k.

Clearly, phase 1 of Homestars will be all about non-registered-user reviews. Phase 2 will allow for and encourage registration. That makes sense. Get a critical mass of users by demanding less of them, and then, ask for more, to strengthen the value of the resource.

It's an odyssey that... well I won't say it's just begun, though I'm just beginning on it formally as a member of one of these types of companies now... actually, the odyssey is a few years old, but we've got some way to go to get the word of mouth working the way it should. It's a great start. Even the relatively nascent Homestars.ca site is full of credible helpful reviews.