Grayboxx Founder Bob Chandra responded, via phone, to criticisms of the site’s launch in Burlington,VT, which resulted in a lot of off-the-mark rankings. Chandra acknowledged that Burlington, (population 38,000, with a metro area of about 130,000), may be “too small” to fully leverage his company’s sources of data, which treats all mentions as an indication of popularity. Cities with populations between “100,000 to one million are our sweet spot,” he says.
This week the site is launching in Boise (population 208,000 ) and Cleveland (population 2.95 million) and should see better results, he says. The formal national launch will be Dec. 3. He hopes to have another round of financing in place by then.
Chandra notes he is constrained from citing his source(s) of data; something that has hurt the site’s credibility. There is no way to check his assertion that he’s got access to mentions on more than half of U.S. small businesses (even if you accept the fairly radical –but interesting –concept that mentions are about as good as actual reviews).
As former AOL Local Exec Laurence Hooper notes in comments to The Local Onliner, “I’d very much like to hear some real information about the sources Grayboxx is plumbing, by the way, and I suspect their users would also. I think the company would get much more useful feedback if people understood what’s behind the curtain.”
Whether the sources are ever revealed, and Grayboxx catches on or not, what I take away is just how difficult it is going to be to get a quorum of legit reviews and ratings for small businesses. When you get beyond the passion categories (restaurants, bars). realistic consumers are going to have to figure out how low is “good enough.”
Correction… Burlington is not the capital of Vermont. That distinction belongs to truly small Montpelier, population about 8,000 (and the smallest state capital in the United States and the only one without a McDonalds!).
And practically speaking, while the City of Burlington’s population is about 38,000, the metro area of which it is the center is about 130,000… that’s the area that Greyboxx is covering here… the metro area.
Fixed! Michael is definitely the “go to” person for all things Burlington! And hyperlocal and probably many other things (Thanks) Peter K
Ah ha–so it’s “mentions”–not reviews or “neighbor recommendations”. Even so, that doesn’t explain why when I log on from the san Francisco Bay Area (admittedly a grayboxx beta site), I am automatically told on their front page, presumably from my IP address, that “Dan’s Automotive”, in Daly City, near San Francisco, has “647 recommendations”.
Big problem. (1) no company anywhere has 647 recommendations (yet), (2) More important, there is NO Dan’s Automotive in Daly City, or within 50 miles of San Francisco.
Checking further, I find a listing for a plumber (who we promote) who, according to grayboxx, has “87 recommendations”. Sorry, not possible, He’s not mentioned on Yelp, Insider Pages or Angieslist locally. Then when I try to read some of the plumbers’s reviews. I get a message saying “there are no customer reviews”!
What gives?
I wish I had access to that many small businesses!!! I hope it does well!