Facebook® & Twitter® For Seniors For Dummies®

Chapter 14. Giving or Taking an Opinion

Get ready to ...

• Check Out Angie's List

• Find Anything (and Its Reviews) on Amazon

• Find Restaurants, Shopping, and Nightlife on Yelp

• Register on Yelp to Leave Reviews.

• Leave a Review on Yelp

• Read Between the Lines at Review Sites

• Find Hotel Reviews on TripAdvisor

• Add a Hotel Review on TripAdvisor.

• Find a Good Movie on Flixster

• Leave a Comment on Flixster.

Opinions are like bellybuttons — everybody has one. When you read reviews on the Web, realize that they can be written as honest evaluations — or they may be paid promotions (remember the payola scandals?) or slam jobs by the competition and spurned ex-employees. It takes a lot of reading to narrow down the wheat from the chaff.

The power of the Internet is that it's built on the voices of millions of people. The more people post reviews and give opinions, the more the truth on any topic will surface.

Crowd-sourcing is a popular 21st century form of marketing. When a company wants to learn about the consensus on a topic or product, it sends queries on the Internet and gleans data from the responses.

You know that the "wisdom of crowds" can sometimes be the opposite of wise. Members of a crowd can be too conscious of each other's opinions — so they begin to emulate the others' comments, which brings about conformity rather than a variety of views. We see that often these days, in political arguments on both sides of an issue.

Speaking your mind on the Web is your chance to make a difference. All voices are ...