Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The web 2.0 company that proclaims itself as MySpace meets the yellow pages. Mojo Pages is based out of North County San Diego and have had more hype than Crystal Clear Pepsi. So lets get down to it and take a look at MojoPages.
The Good:
Lets face it user generated reviews are in and for good reason, user generated reviews offer the most reliable information to users (yeah I know it is redundant but it also makes sense)...Moreover MojoPages are adding some benefits that companies might consider as a serious benefit, for example adding a wide range of categories to review on (Value, Service, and Quality), and video reviews.
Its also hard to forget that they have millions in funding and some pretty big name people involved in the company - such as an early level employee from Zillow.
The Cons:
They are the late comer here, Insiderpages and Yelp already have a big command on the user review industry. Given that, it seems highly unlikely that many locally owned stores will want to pay for premium placement on MojoPages, with relatively low unique traffic. Of course the biggest gripe is that it is hard for me to see what the added value of this site is, compared to any other user based review site. The most unique feature is the ability to upload video reviews, but how many people are really going to do that (not many), and even if they did how useful would the video be?
There is a huge barrier that MojoPages needs to surpass and the first is to convince their potential users that their added value features make it a better or more useful place for their reviews. As of now I am not convinced!
2 Responses to Mojo Pages - Yet Another Local Review Site
I've been using MojoPages.com for a while now and I love the site and think that those social features are exactly what pushes it ahead of its competitors that were perhaps a little earlier to market.
That being said, as a user...what would make MojoPages the most useful place for your reviews?
Rick, I think the issue is not their use of social features; in fact I think Mojopages use is both good and necessary. The point is, what is their differentiator? I honestly feel that yelp is just "cooler" and it will take more than adding videos reviews(to which I find very little value in), to make a user switch.
I'm all for cheering for the local guy, but unless your first to market, you have to be better then the guys first to market (either in branding or implementation) and mojopages IMHO is not turning heads in either case.
A lot of times the startups we are looking at, may not be very good at something yet, but at least I can see the potential in their vision. Something along the lines of hey if we gave this team a lot more money to compete with the big boys, they could be revolutionary. But with mojopages I don't necessarily get that feeling.
Something to say?