Show HN: Smugg.com (Rottentomatoes.com for Tech Gadgets) | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Smugg.com (Rottentomatoes.com for Tech Gadgets)

smugg.com

5 pointsfernandose2 comments

Smugg.com.

Critic review aggregator for consumer electronics. I admit the progress of this project has been very slow, mostly due to me learning how to code properly this time while also developing this site. However in this time, gdgt.com shifted their focus to same area of critic reviews aggregation. They have done an excellent job with the team and money they have and I now wonder if it leaves any space for me to keep going.

So please do let me know what you think.

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Extra details:

- I admit the progress of this project has been very slow, mostly due to me learning how to code properly this time while also developing this site. However in this time, gdgt.com shifted their focus to same area of critic reviews aggregation. They have done an excellent job with the team and money they have and I now wonder if it leaves any space for me to keep going. So please do let me know what you think.

- As I am new to programming and still very much learning, I have used wordpress as the foundation for the MVP and customised it by programming new plugins.

- At the moment aggregating is completely manual, so I am still establishing a formal process which allows an uninterrupted flow of publishing products.

- The scoring follows a very similar method to metacritics. However at the moment the only adjustment made during scoring is ‘weighting’, which allows publishers who consistently produce well written and in-depth reviews to have a more prominent part in the final score calculation

I think the reason Rotten Tomatoes is successful in because by in large, most reviews are negative. The true good movies actually stand-out.

For Smugg, when the homepage consists of all reviews in the 80-95 range, you can't tell things apart. It's just another generic review site that says everything is "okay", when in reality, the baked-in, out of the box experience of a device usually sucks in day-to-day use.

I don't know how you're getting reviews, but you could honestly seed this yourself by critically analyzing Engadget reviews and really focus on the flaws of the product, instead of the "features" for generating your scores.

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