OPEN

The Observer Business & Media carried an interview with Sun columnist, Jane Moore yesterday, the main angle of which was her heading up a new shoppers’ complaints website, Youthejury.com:

“There’s a really good holiday website called Tripadvisor. If it becomes anything like that it would be great.”

In the words of the website:

This is a website for the people, by the people. Whether you’re planning to spend a small fortune on a new car or just a few quid on the latest electric razor or tinted moisturiser – forget what’s written on the packet, brochure or website by someone with a vested interest, and check out the invaluable opinion of the consumers who have bought it before you.

If Ms Moore were to achieve her stated goal, it would be a very lucrative site indeed.

This is at first glance a clever strategy. Not getting the Sunday Times to launch a Tripadvisor wannabe but to take a social media concept that’s worked in travel to a traditional mass consumer audience.

Youthejury.com is at first glance not that impressive. Reviews are very brief. I expect it will be more useful as a warning of poor service or products than a rival for Amazon’s reviews or social shopping experiments like Crowdstorm.

What I find incredible is that it’s actually a start-up rather than a Sun / Murdoch-backed venture – but she is hoping to sell it back to her boss after a couple of years?

Moore contemplated approaching her employer, News International – or even Rupert Murdoch himself – for start-up cash, but decided to go it alone. ‘If in five years’ time somebody like Murdoch or Yahoo says: It’s a nice little website, how much do you want for it?’, Moore will be off to her villa in the sun. If not, she says, ‘I’ll be selling The Big Issue.’

As with all social media communities of information its potential usefulness will come from the number of people. I ran a couple of trials on TVs I was thinking of buying – it did have one of the brands, but not a specific model and there wasn’t much information beyond a positive two-liner and a 4-star rating.