Video Product Reviews: An Idea Worth Five Stars?

Posted by: Olga Kharif on October 03, 2006

Fans of Epinions.com and Amazon.com’s reviews might rejoice at a new breed of product reviews: video reviews. YouTube.com, I’ve noticed, carries quite a few videos of product demonstrations, though you have to search for them. And I recently stumbled onto ExpoTV.com. The site also offers video reviews submitted by users.

At ExpoTV.com, not only do you get to hear what reviewers thought of that book, car, camcorder or toy, but you actually get to see them point things out to you in a video. You can also read video transcripts and rate reviews.

Currently, the site doesn’t offer that many videos. In the camcorders section, for instance, there’re only 35 reviews. But ExpoTV.com has been playing around with the idea of compensating people for their opinions. Winners of its games review competition recently got flat-screen TVs . Though Sept. 30, the site also offered people $10 for submitting qualifying video reviews. The idea is somewhat similar to PayPerPost’s, which my colleague Rob Hoff wrote about on Oct. 2 (see below).

I don’t know if this pay-for-review model works, but I certainly like the idea of being able to watch video reviews before I buy products.