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ProCompare – Crowdsourced Business Technology Recommendations (video)
Mor Sela, Co-Founder & CEO of NY-based ProCompare provided a demo of their web application last night at the TechAviv meetup in NYC. Mor described the service as offering, "business technology recommendations powered by a global community of IT professionals".
Basically what they do is provide a resource for product reviews in a variety of tech categories. The reviews are provided by IT workers who provide the reviews to gain face time to the small businesses who will use ProCompare to help figure out which products match their needs. They have a suite of tools to help narrow down the recommendations based on the small business owner’s needs.
Mor discussed their business model which I think needs work. Part of their plan is to go to the companies listed on the site (e.g. Cisco, HP, Microsoft, etc.) and try to get them to pay for referrals. They also plan to not link to the companies unless they pay and will note that these non-paying companies are just that on their results. I think this is a huge mistake because all it does it take away from the user experience to the end user. If a company doesn’t pay and ProCompare doesn’t link out to more details, that will come across poorly. I also think they need to be careful to never appear like companies who pay get preferential treatment in the results – especially since they push the trust factor on the site. It could end up like the issues Yelp is facing today regarding removing negative reviews for money.
On the flip side, I think they could partner with a company which we just reviewed the other day, WebCollage. For product companies who signup for a premium membership, WebCollage could provide a microsite inside ProComare. That could work very well for both companies.
Thanks Allen for the coverage and feedback about the business model.
Indeed our prime focus is on the user experience. Our goal is that ProCompare.com will become the most trusted source for small businesses seeking technology recommendations.
To amplify this, here is a quote from our home page about our commitment to trust:
“Earning your trust is our first priority. We know that for you to trust us, you need to know us. This is why we don’t hide anything. We disclose our product recommendation methodology, the way we certify experts and how we determine their trust level. We even disclose our vendor policy to assure you that we are totally unbiased.”
We believe that business tech buyers are savvy enough to appreciate the fact that we show all top ranked vendors, even if they are not sponsors of ProCompare. That said, I really like your idea about partnering with WebCollage to create additional premium offering for users and vendors. We will explore it.
The personalized ranking of products is based exclusively on the user community’s feedback, and in that sense, is not something we will interfere with other than our ongoing process of ensuring the provided reviews are professionally done and pass our internal structural qualifications.
Given that our experts are registered specialized users on our site, with individual profiles showcasing their IT expertise, we do not see a scenario similar to Yelp arising. If a vendor is unhappy with a review, we will encourage them to reach out to that expert / user on our site – who can then go back and modify their reviews if need be.