Blockchain Word of Mouth Marketing (BWOMM) is an idea that began in 2017 as a project to change the entire rules of the current online review industry by using the Blockchain more particular Steem’s ECO-System.
Today we are witnessing a world in which buying decisions are majorly made through own internet research. In markets traditionally characterized by asymmetric information, this development indeed reduced the need for personal consultations through experts. Searching through the internet for the right restaurant or hotel, todays users most commonly end up on different review websites like TripAdvisor or Yelp. In this alleged system of trust, the independent users increasingly appeared to place their trust.
However;
• Can we really trust reviews and rankings of today’s major review websites?
• Do you know how many fake reviews exist on review websites?
• Do you know that there is a million-dollar fake review industry spamming the internet with fake reviews?
• Are review websites independent content provider or capital dependent companies?
These are the questions you most commonly ask yourself once you already have chosen a hotel or restaurant that does not correspond to the descriptions in the internet.
One of our favorite examples how review websites are misused:
Illustration: http://draftingtraveller.com/index.php/2017/02/19/backpackers-bribed-fake-reviews/
The objective of our first BWOMM post is to explain today's major problems of review websites and to outline a next generation solution for a reliable, independent and self-monitoring review platform that consistently rewards each person's review and curation within the community.
What does BWOMM mean?
BWOMM stands for the academic term Blockchain Word of Mouth Marketing (Bazari, 2018). Considering the old adage that "your best salesman is a satisfied customer", the impact of personal recommendation has long been subject of research (Engel et al.,1969; Cohen, 1972; Plog, 1974; Butler, 1980; Dearden & Harron, 1992; Morgan et al., 2003; O’Neill et al., 2002; Carare, 2012) and is termed as word of mouth marketing (WOMM; Arndt, 1967; Carl, 2006). With the rise of review websites on the internet the term electronic word of mouth Marketing (eWOMM) was created and studied (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004). BWOMM can be seen as the latest evolution of this academic term.
Left part of illustration: Mike O’Connor
The Current Problems of Todays Review Websites:
Today’s major review websites are exchange listed companies with several billion Dollar worth. This worth is owned exclusively by the shareholder, although the users are providing the main value on review websites. Namely, the written reviews and web traffic. Instead of being monetarily rewarded, user as well as restaurants and hotels to be appraised on review websites are exposed to fake reviews and are often influenced by adverts . For example, TripAdvisor.com is promoting its premium account with the following words: “Accommodation & restaurant providers can enhance their TripAdvisor listings and attract even more travelers with some additional tools that are available for a fee.”
Check below links if you would like to learn more about overall issue:
• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/technology/finding-fake-reviews-online.html
• https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/jan/26/fake-reviews-plague-consumer-websites
• https://fivestar-marketing.net/en/
• https://www.tripadvisor.com/TripAdvisorInsights/n2423/free-or-premium-guide-marketing-tripadvisor
• https://www.tripadvisor.com/TripAdvisorInsights/n2756/tripadvisor-business-advantage-accommodations
Illustration: Jonathan Edwards
As you can see in the above links, there are a lot of Pinocchio’s around spamming all review websites on the internet.
Why is that??? Learn more on: Today’s review website dilemma
Today’s major review websites are commercial companies with the aim to maximize earnings. Although reviews for different products and services are the major reason to visit these sites, their money is made by adverting such as click-based, display-based and subscription-based advertisement (B2B premium memberships). Therefore, crucial for today’s review website revenues is first to reach a high volume of reviews to attract high user traffic and a frequent usage of its advertisements. To generate a high volume of reviews and boost the popularity, review websites, designed an easy, fast and anonymous register and review writing process. Certainly, this simple process made it easy for opinion spammer (persons or organized groups with the intention to fake reviews and influence rankings for money) to register under a variety of user names and generate fake content, with a very low probability for legal consequences. The rise of fake reviews in turn caused a user trust problem, which required a reaction of the review websites (Mukherjee et al., 2013; Sussin & Thompson 2012; Luca & Zervas 2013; Belton, 2015). Consequently, the websites started to implement different mechanisms to fight opinion spamming.
However, here starts the dilemma. On the one hand, it is not beneficial for review websites to implement an expensive, rigorous and complex sign-in and approval process, as this will rise the costs, reduce user growth and the number of reviews (Roddy, 2017). Consequently, this will most probably lead to a loss of revenues. On the other hand, a spam filter for fake reviews needs to be implemented, as review websites have to be careful to not lose the trust of the user. Since this also will most probably lead to a decreased user traffic and therefore, to a reduction of revenues. As both aspects are crucial for its success but contradictory, review websites always need to keep the balance between easy access and an adequate spam filter. This balance however, is kept at the expense of a semi truth, which on the one side could bias the customer decisions and on the other side, could be existence-threatening for the service and product providers, especially in a service-oriented business like the tourism industry and gastronomy (Lappas et al., 2016).
The Solution:
With the evolution of the Blockchain technology, more particular with STEEM combining Blockchain and Social Media functionalities, a game changer has come to the online scene, which is highly applicable for the online review industry.
In this regard, our overall focus is to establish different mechanisms based on the Blockchain to build a reliable, independent and self-monitoring review platform that consistently rewards each person's contribution to the network. Moreover, we are implementing a Blockchain based community approval process that turns the problem of fake reviews into a democratic question. Specifically, whether the community agrees with the opinion of the other reviewer or not.
By implementing these functions, we seek to give the power back to the user, by turning a review in to a community rateable item that is worth money.
Introduction to the idea behind BWOMM:
To learn more about our approach, please view our short introduction to the BWOMM Project.
The BWOMM Project:
The BWOMM project is an open community project. Therefore, you are always invited to contribute to the project if you like the idea. In the case of interest; please contact us under project (at) bwomm.io or via commenting below.
Our Team:
Currently the team consists of 9 amazing people from all over the world. The Team announcement is coming soon.
Our Airdrop:
Everyone liking, commenting/contributing and following us is invited to generate and leave his BWOMM Token address. We will reward you immediately with 250 BWOMM tokens. This first Airdrop is valid until the end of March 2018.
Token Contract Adress: 0xa967c46ae9dc38999709ca30554e50fd7f5115a7
Token Symbol: BWOM
Decimals of Precision: 18
Here is an Example how to add a token to Metamask:
Please, keep in mind that our BWOM Token is currently Ethereum based and will be 1 to 1 converted once we will move to our Platform. The other two tokens (BWST and BWD) will be created once the BWOMM review website goes live and the people start to write reviews and receive rewards.
