Ratepoint | Social Site Rating and Bookmarking
Tim February 28th, 2007
Here at DemoMarks we rate sites, review them, and pass on all the details. Yet, the discussion is a bit one-sided. Sure we offer the ability for users to comment and alter the ratings, but we’re the one’s doing the site reviews and therefore controlling what gets rated. Ratepoint takes site ratings and reviews to a more social level by allowing users to make friends and find people with similiar tastes based on the sites they’ve rated. It ends up being a great way to find out about new sites that match up with your interests. I’m all about making friends and finding new sites so I’m grabbin’ shotgun for some Ratepoint cruisin’.
1. The homepage gives a basic overview of what’s happening recently at Ratepoint with the most recent site ratings and signups. They’re also offering users the chance to win a Nintendo Wii and HDTV by inviting friends which is an added bonus, assuming of course that I actually had friends to invite.
2. You know the drill by this point, signup, verify, login. Nothing really new, though it’s interesting to note you need to be 13 years of age or older to use Ratepoint (most likely due to the adult nature of some of the sites being rated).
3. After logging in for the first time I’m given the option to take a tour of the place or get down to business. I appreciate the option of learning more about the site, but these days I’m the tour guide so I skip ahead of the line and get right to business.
4. My next step in the process of logging in (and yes there are a few steps apparently) is to add friends. Unfortunately I can’t think of anyone who likes me enough to add them at the moment so I’m skipping this step.
5. Ratepoint has the ability to import links from del.icio.us and apply mass ratings to them all. Though I was getting rather annoyed by all the steps of logging in for the first time I do really enjoy this feature since it will fill my account up nicely right off the start. Ratings have to be applied as a group to the whole import, which is hopefully something that could be resolved in later releases, though it’s not a huge deal since most of my bookmarks are sites I enjoy so a 5 will do nicely.
6. After giving me del.icio.us user information I’m notified that it will take up to 30 minutes for my bookmarks to appear in Ratepoint. That’s somewhat annoying since the process should be pretty immediate, but it’s not as annoying as the fact that 3 screens in I still haven’t reached the main landing page for Ratepoint and now I’m requested to give even more information. I should note that all of the information being requested in these screens is available through the Tools and Profile page of the Ratepoint site. It seems like these options, while helpful for users who want to build up their account immediately, are really serving as barriers for those who want to get to the main site immediately.
7. I’ve finally made it to the main page, logged in and ready to go. The main landing page has a lot going on, but they’ve made good use of tabs to separate the content appropriately. I have the option of viewing the latest ratings from the community as a whole or just my own personal ratings in the main content window. The sidebar keeps track of keywords (basically like a tag cloud) for myself and the community as well as my friends and “dittos” (users that have similiar interests based on sites reviewed).
8. I definitely want to try adding a rating so I click the “Rate a New Site” button. I also had the option of rating any of the sites that have already been added by other users at Ratepoint. The interface is very nicely built with auto-completion of tags and “hover-highlighting” of the rating stars (and yes, I just made up the word “hover-highlighting” and I think it works beautifully in this case).
9. I’ll be adding DemoMarks today with a big fat 5 stars because we rock, in my respective opinion of course. Adding it was just a few clicks and we’re on the list.
10. I start to check out the other options available (assuming I haven’t seen everything by way of the 20 screens to make it to the main page that is). The profile page again uses tabs to present quite a bit of information about users with similiar interests, my friends, the ratings I’ve completed, and the keywords tagged onto those ratings. I think the layout of the site and interface is something Ratepoint really excels at and it definitely shows as their strong point.
11. Going into the tools page I see a few options that Ratepoint already covered with the initial login but one great feature that I find is the prominently displayed toolbar available for install on Firefox and Internet Explorer. The toolbar gives all the functions of adding ratings for a site as well as forwarding it on to other friends right in your browser so you don’t even have to be at Ratepoint all the time to use the service. It’s a great feature that will help users adopt the service over time and build up their list of sites.
12. On the invite page I’m given the option of sending a message to a friend inviting them to join. I also have a referral link that I can use which will add them as my friend when they sign up using it. One nice thing that wasn’t included is the ability to send invitations to multiple people at once.
I may have given Ratepoint a hard time because of the initial login process but that’s a simple usability issue they could easily address. On the upside they’ve mastered the rest of the interface and manage to provide a lot of information in a clean and organized matter. It says a lot that at no point in the process did I feel overwhelmed by the information on the page. The AJAX autocomplete and highlighting features are nice and the toolbar is a wonderful addition that will aid in the addition of multiple site ratings without visiting Ratepoint each time and manually entering them. For a free web application I think it had its ups and downs but it’s an interesting idea and I’ll probably be back to visit and find out what friends match up with my interests.
