aggregate-review-examples

1 The Problem
2 Participants
3 Real-World Examples
4 Existing Practices
5 Proposal
6 See Also

The Problem

There are various services that provide aggregate ratings and reviews on the Web. How should this information be presented in microformat form? hReview is oriented towards individual reviews with ratings; can it also be used for presenting data from aggregate reviews?

Participants

John Panzer
Kavi Goel

Real-World Examples

Links to public web pages, either popular or insightful

Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FA1NFA/
Aggregation of user reviews for a product. Up to 10 reviews per page
Includes 1-5 stars average rating and the total number of reviews
Also includes number of reviews for each score (1-5)

Bizrate

Aggregation of user reviews for a product. Up to 10 reviews per page
Includes 1-5 stars average rating and the total number of reviews

Citysearch

http://siliconvalley.citysearch.com/profile/11636582/mountain_view_ca/vive_sol.html
Shows 1-5 stars average rating and the total number of reviews on the "business info" page
On the "reviews" page, it also includes the number of reviews for each score (1-5) and some themes from the reviews (i.e. "Prompt seating", "Romantic", "Good for groups")

CNet Reviews

http://reviews.cnet.com/car-gps-navigation/garmin-nuvi-880/4505-3430_7-32815498.html
Shows both editors rating (1-5 stars as well as a word describing the rating, i.e. "Excellent") and the average user rating (1-5 stars) and total number of user reviews
Only shows editor's review and 3 user reviews on first page for a product.
Clicking through shows 5 reviews per page.

Download.com

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-2008/3000-8022_4-10045910.html
Shows both editors rating (1-5 stars) and the average user rating (1-5 stars) and total number of votes
5 user reviews shown per page

Rotten Tomatoes

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/quantum_of_solace/
Shows percentage of positive reviews from users (in this case, users = movie critics) and number of reviews
An average rating (between 1 and 10) is also shown, but this data is de-emphasized on the Rotten Tomatoes movies pages.

Yelp

http://www.yelp.com/biz/vive-sol-restaurant-mountain-view
Shows 1-5 stars average rating and the total number of reviews
Also includes number of reviews for each score (1-5)
The site highlights recurring themes from reviews (i.e. "The food is delicious - love the chicken mole.") and the number of reviews where such comments were made.

Existing Practices

Summary of common patterns discovered
Other attempts to solve The Problem

Proposal

Early drafts
Link to related pages as they become available
I think that this page from email discussion actually is a non-example: http://webcenter.polls.aol.com/poll?view=69043&pollId=69096 ; it's actually aggregate rankings with numerical weightings, which might lead to an interesting hRanking microformat but I think is out of bounds for an 'aggregate review' discussion.
- -brainstorming
- - proposal
- -microformat

Contents