Wednesday 16 September 2009

How to Feature Good Tripadvisor Reviews!

Not quite sure whether the function will be overwhelmingly accepted by TripAdvisor but a clever wee widget is available called Filterstream which will actually filter out any hotel reviews under the grading a hotel specifies!
Certainly defeates the purpose of unbiased customer reviews that's for sure but then some still argue that the reviews are far from unbiased in the first instance. 
Really not sure what the implications are of the widget; strikes me that it must be using a skimming technology similar to that that gets Ryanair and others so up in arms. Could be wrong but just can't see it having approved access to the TripAdvisor database. If it does we'll gladly publish an apology!
Anyway the article from HotelMarketing.com states that "FilterStream is a free tool that streams qualified TripAdvisor reviews to a hotel's website. The filter feature ensures only reviews above a certain rating are displayed."
"FilterStream searches through TripAdvisor’s database of over twenty million hotel reviews and seamlessly feeds consumer-generated reviews about the hotel to the hotel’s website. As new reviews about a hotel are posted, those reviews are streamed instantly to the hotel’s webpage.

The simple widget embed feature makes FilterStream effortless to implement and can easily be customized to conform to the website’s style. FilterStream not only works well with hotels, but is ideal for B&Bs, boutique hotels, resorts, vacation rentals and hotel management companies."
Not sure what Facebook think of this sort of filtering and we'll endeavour to find out but I can't honestly imagine that it's what they see as a preferred use of their technology. I guess though it does clearly demonstrate that it doesn't matter how big you are there are alternative uses of your product that you not yet have covered!

If you want to have a look at how you can cut out your two and three star reviews give Filterstream a look - it is a clever wee piece of kit!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As a hotel owner, I would recommend to fellow owners, to avoid using this widget like the plague. I cannot believe that TripAdvisor is going to let anyone automatically take advantage of their website by "cherry picking" reviews and then posting them with the TripAdvisor logo. And I don't blame them either. This sort of activity would totally destroy the value of the TripAdvisor Review system in a very short period of time if properties can simply "hide" negative reviews. Plus, it would not surpise me to see TripAdvisor literally remove hotels and restaurants from their website if they find them doing this. Just my opinion, but this widget "scams" the public into thinking they are seeing the total picture when they are not. TripAdvisor is trusted by the public right now. If this widget "filtering" idea takes off, it will only be good for properties that get bad reviews, as it will make them appear to be something they are not. Hopefully TripAdvisor will get their attorneys on this right away if they already havn't.