I like it. The web is full of people who aren't really programmers who are using it to make money. That's how I got into programming a decade ago.

They'll learn to make a rating system if they really feel the need (making a reasonable one is not rocket science) but offer them a slick one that's easy to integrate on the webpage where they're selling their e-books or vinyls or whatever and I imagine they'd pay for the usage.

There are a few problems that I see here, but two of the big ones:

1. As a visitor to a random website, I'm skeptical of reviews I see on that site. If your brand gets big enough that people see "Comments powered by PlusPanda" and think "Oh, ok...I can trust this", then maybe, but that seems like a pretty lofty goal to have to reach before your business model really clicks.

2. The bigger problem is self-selection bias. If I run a great business, of course I'd love more people talking me up on my site. If I run a crappy business, I'll have no reviews or reviews that I can filter, shape, and control. 3rd party review sites remove the power to have and control reviews from the business owner, and that's kind of the whole point.

EDIT: I just read this and I realized that I sound really negative. Let me point out that I only bothered to go through the site, think the issue out, and write a comment because I think what you're doing is genuinely interesting and has a lot of potential. I just wanted to point out some issues I'm sure you've thought through, and I'd like to know what your view is.

On the add review widget, maybe the default rating should be 5, or at least not 1. Maybe use one of those star widgets instead of the combo box? I think business using this would prefer a higher default rating, rather than have their products get lots of 1s by mistake.

It's also not clear in the demo why users have to have to give a name and email to submit a review - do you need that extra friction?

The summary "Now you can manage reviews on your website just like http://yelp.com but completely branded by you, all with just two lines of code." is confusing. It hints at why someone would want this, but it's not clear how it works (e.g. whether its a service or a library). Also, "two lines of code" may be easy, but it probably won't sound that way to many people. The rest of the front page explains the benefits of your service, but never clearly explains what it does and how it works.

Your demo should look like a real site, using PlusPanda for a real purpose.

Very nice.

3 issues:

1) What are the 2 lines of code?

2) I took about 5 seconds to find the "Add review" form, as it was hidden behind some button.

3) I your site design, but not the title font size (too big, or too many points) and the pitch text. It's good for consumers, but I find it a bit dumbed down.

Your target customers appear to be sophisticated website owners (after all, your first paragraph reads "Now you can manage reviews on your website just like http://yelp.com but completely branded by you, all with just two lines of code", and you use words like "utilize").

Instead of "big headers and lots of text, for consumers", you might try something like:

Customer Reviews Work.

Amazon.com, Apple, Borders books, Best Buy, Walmart and other big-box retailers use customer reviews on their websites, because it works. With Plus Panda, you can do the same, with just 2 lines of code, and for a very low cost.

Don't take our word for it. Read our reviews and then Get Started Now!

With just 2 lines of code, you can:

* Build trust and credibility with new customers.

* Encourage customers to give you feedback.

* Respond quickly and openly to customer complaints.

* Promote new products (WTF, is that a COMING SOON feature??)

* Help customers spread the word through Twitter, Facebook and Myspace (coming soon??).

A world class customer review system (like Amazon's system, yelp or Panda Plus) could take months to build if you started from scratch. But all this, and more (including a 90 day guarantee, and a data export API) is available from just (What does it cost??? Don't you know yet? OK cool.). How cool is that?

Anyway, it's a nice site and a cool product idea.

Thanks in advance for the feedback my dear HN crew.

Customer reviews are in a sense the framework for online word-of-mouth, and word-of-mouth marketing is ...Gold. Pluspanda.com is the MVP toward this end.

The marketing site and the product functionality is clearly still pretty raw, so ideal feedback would be on concept implementation execution, possible avenues, and feature must-haves etc.

Also any designers that can style the widget , please email me!!

Thanks!

I think your real goal is not immediately obvious. At first it looks like you're just providing a way for businesses to get feedback, but I see that is not it at all. It is, however, a great pitch.

I would put a little more on the home page about the trust aspect (which to me seems to be the real goal).

I think you are almost certainly going to be dealing with the issue of owners wanting to delete reviews for a very long time, but I think your position, once properly understood, makes sense. When I first read it, however, I was taken aback, so I think some warning (in the form of a few comments about the trust aspect) on the front page would help prepare users for this.

Really, I think you have an awesome product and idea here. This is the kind of the thing that once it was established, customers would start to expect and even judge sites based on whether or not they had it (think Carfax).

Will these have your branding on them? Because if they don't, then how will people confirm the credibility of the reviews? Kind of defeats the purpose of open honest reviews and not letting owners delete reviews if users don't know that.

With yelp, people know that these are reviews on a third-party site.

Also, I'd like to add that since users are embedding these reviews on their own sites', visitors will not know if owners tamper with the reviews with additional javascript. Having reviews on a third party site has its advantages.

The digg link doesn't have a hover effect, also consider using sprites with a background-position for those social media links on the homepage because then you won't get the wait while the hover image loads.

The write a review form should probably always be visible as that is the core feature of the product, also the solid colours are a little loud.

Hi, Didnt read previous comments so someone may have said this or addressed it already.

Design looks a little bit to bland for me. Almost like a off the shelf wordpress theme.

Focus on your strong points:

Easy Setup List major benefits ( Increase sales, search traffic, etc. ) Easy Administration Analytics

Cool idea though.

I like this. I would use visual stars as well, which will bring reviews to life better than numbers only. Also, I think the PlusPanda branding could work well, and although the current logo is okay, I might shoot for something cuter/happier. Pandas give the perfect opportunity for that.

Take a look at your tab order, it goes from the review field to the name field, skipping the email field. Also, it isn't very clear to me how it will look at my own website. Do I embed the big box? what about customizing to fit my layout? etc.

Looks nice, and a good idea. I'd consider using this if I had a need for it (and I may in the future).

I did notice that tabbing order goes review body->name->email->submit, which doesn't match their visual layout.

There's a typo in the front page : "A Powerful, Easy Customer Communicaton System."