Henry McMaster is the Attorney-General of South Carolina. Two weeks ago Mr McMaster gave craigslist an ultimatum: “remove the portions of the Internet site dedicated to South Carolina and its municipal regions which contain categories for and functions allowing for the solicitation of prostitution and the dissemination and posting of graphic pornographic material” within ten (10) days.” “If those South Carolina portions of the site are not removed,” McMaster said, “the management of craigslist may be subject to criminal investigation and prosecution.”
In addition to being unwarranted by the facts, legal experts agree that the charges threatened represent an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech, and are clearly barred by federal law (sec 230 CDA).
Henry McMaster wants to Governor and he's not about to let a pesky little issue like freedom of speech stand in his way. Tell Henry McMaster what you think of him on his new PersonRatings profile.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
PersonRatings in Der Spiegel
PersonRatings was recently featured in Der Spiegel, Germany's biggest magazine.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Wikipedia Entry
Help build the Wikipedia entry on PersonRatings here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PersonRatings.com
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Techflash Mention
John Cook at Seattle technology blog techflash recently posted this blurb about PersonRatings.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Big Improvements on the Way
PersonRatings.com will be undergoing a big redesign. Why? Because the site is not nearly good enough. The website is currently a one-trick pony: ratings. Users are not being sucked into an entertaining and engaging experience and, as a result, they are leaving and not coming back (and not telling their friends). How can we tell? Traffic spiked following our appearance on Fox News but subsequently dropped off a cliff. So, I'm asking the 12 people who visit the site on a regular basis to give us their ideas for improving it. Unfortunately, the majority of these people are mentally ill. So, if you are one of the 4 or 5 people who aren't....nevermind, we'll take suggestions from anyone. A couple of caveats: We're sticking with the domain PersonRatings.com, as bad as it is. I just can't handle starting from SEO scratch. Just so we're not duplicating effort, here are the changes we're already planning to make short-term:
1. Syndicated dynamic content from a 'People Search' site on each profile so each profile is a one stop shop for people info.
2. Making the ratings section smaller, moving it directly under the profile pic and making it a widget that can be easily put on anyone's site or blog. The dropdown voting will be eliminated and qualities will appear dynamically in order of highest to lowest rating received.
3. On the right side, adding a picture rating widget, where comments can be added. Again, easy to copy onto your site.
4. Adding a 'Compare People' feature that introduces an element of competition.
5. Adding profile browsing/sorting by quality and location. Forinstance, search for smartest person in San Antonio.
6. Adding ratings alert that emails you when you've been rated.
7. Adding 'Tell a Friend' feature during profile creation process.
8. Adding a pic gallery during profile creation process to make adding a pic easier.
9. Moving profile comments higher so they are visible without scrolling down.
10. College/Co. pages enabling you to sort profiles by institution & year.
11. Scale then crop on all pics.
12. Adding a 'Top Stories' page, which will feature interesting recent postings in the form of a blog, with commentary and possibly investigation. I'd love ideas for a great name.
13. Adding 'Leave {Profile Name} a private message' feature. Also, 'Claim Your Profile' feature that allows you to retrieve your messages.
14. 'Recommend this Person' feature, where users can register or sign in with FB Connect & recommend the person ala linkedin.
15. {Profile Name} Quiz widget, where you can answer questions about the person.* FB app, iphone app, mobile version
1. Syndicated dynamic content from a 'People Search' site on each profile so each profile is a one stop shop for people info.
2. Making the ratings section smaller, moving it directly under the profile pic and making it a widget that can be easily put on anyone's site or blog. The dropdown voting will be eliminated and qualities will appear dynamically in order of highest to lowest rating received.
3. On the right side, adding a picture rating widget, where comments can be added. Again, easy to copy onto your site.
4. Adding a 'Compare People' feature that introduces an element of competition.
5. Adding profile browsing/sorting by quality and location. Forinstance, search for smartest person in San Antonio.
6. Adding ratings alert that emails you when you've been rated.
7. Adding 'Tell a Friend' feature during profile creation process.
8. Adding a pic gallery during profile creation process to make adding a pic easier.
9. Moving profile comments higher so they are visible without scrolling down.
10. College/Co. pages enabling you to sort profiles by institution & year.
11. Scale then crop on all pics.
12. Adding a 'Top Stories' page, which will feature interesting recent postings in the form of a blog, with commentary and possibly investigation. I'd love ideas for a great name.
13. Adding 'Leave {Profile Name} a private message' feature. Also, 'Claim Your Profile' feature that allows you to retrieve your messages.
14. 'Recommend this Person' feature, where users can register or sign in with FB Connect & recommend the person ala linkedin.
15. {Profile Name} Quiz widget, where you can answer questions about the person.* FB app, iphone app, mobile version
Thursday, April 9, 2009
New Website Lets Anyone Rate You
SEATTLE, April 9 /PRNewswire/ -- PersonRatings.com announced its public launch today, making it the first website where any American can be rated and reviewed by anyone. Unlike a social networking profile, a PersonRatings profile can be created by anyone, about anyone, and is completely open to contributions from anyone.
The site debuts with over 250,000 profiles of ordinary Americans who can be rated on ten qualities, ranging from intelligence to trustworthiness. Each profile also contains a message board, biography section and photo gallery. Over 100,000 new profiles are being added weekly.
"You can already rate doctors, lawyers and real estate agents online," said PersonRatings founder Jeremy Stamper. "Now, you can rate any American adult. Your PersonRatings profile will give you feedback on how the world sees you. It will also provide information about other people that might help you make better life decisions."
PersonRatings.com relies on content filters and user flagging to keep the site free of profanity and vulgarity. In addition, profiles of minors are prohibited.
About PersonRatings.com
PersonRatings.com is the first website that enables anyone to rate and review any American adult online. The site officially launched on April 9th, 2009 with over 250,000 profiles of ordinary Americans, with more being added every week. PersonRatings addresses the huge demand for informative and entertaining content about people. PersonRatings.com is owned and operated by Topic5 LLC, a Washington State limited liability company.
Website: http://www.personratings.com/
Contact:
Jeremy Stamper
info@personratings.com
(206) 261-2795
The site debuts with over 250,000 profiles of ordinary Americans who can be rated on ten qualities, ranging from intelligence to trustworthiness. Each profile also contains a message board, biography section and photo gallery. Over 100,000 new profiles are being added weekly.
"You can already rate doctors, lawyers and real estate agents online," said PersonRatings founder Jeremy Stamper. "Now, you can rate any American adult. Your PersonRatings profile will give you feedback on how the world sees you. It will also provide information about other people that might help you make better life decisions."
PersonRatings.com relies on content filters and user flagging to keep the site free of profanity and vulgarity. In addition, profiles of minors are prohibited.
About PersonRatings.com
PersonRatings.com is the first website that enables anyone to rate and review any American adult online. The site officially launched on April 9th, 2009 with over 250,000 profiles of ordinary Americans, with more being added every week. PersonRatings addresses the huge demand for informative and entertaining content about people. PersonRatings.com is owned and operated by Topic5 LLC, a Washington State limited liability company.
Website: http://www.personratings.com/
Contact:
Jeremy Stamper
info@personratings.com
(206) 261-2795
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
ABC News Coverage
Balanced and well researched article appearing on abcnews.com http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7222890&page=1
WebProNews Article
Kind of a funny article about PersonRatings from another technology blog: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/03/30/the-internet-said-what-about-me
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Ars Technica Article
Ars Technica (the famous technology blog) had a piece about PersonRatings today, which did not touch on any of the positive impacts of the site: http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/03/rate-your-friends-enemies-at-new-site-but-why.ars
Official Site Launch: April 9th, 2009
We are frantically working on last minute changes to PersonRatings.com and will officially announce the launch of the website on Thursday, April 9th, barring any unexpected delays. We had hoped to make the announcement on April 2nd but the site just won't be ready.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
PersonRatings on KPAM
Founder Jeremy Stamper is interviewed on the Bob Miller Show on Portland's KPAM Radio: http://207.126.125.163/pages/pages.php?page=17
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
PersonRatings Elevator Pitch
PersonRatings founder Jeremy Stamper describes the website in a short video for StartupNation: https://www.startupnation.com/elevator-pitch-2009/contestant/5339/index.php
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
A Bit of Internet Buzz
Though we haven't officially launched, we did get a bit of internet publicity today:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/11/person_rating/
http://www.killerstartups.com/tag/PersonRatings/
...and also from our wonderful friends, The Dutch, who all learn English in secondary school but who oddly take responsibility for this paragraph describing PersonRatings:
"The gurus shoot as mushrooms from the ground. And rightly so. The average fellow has a large part of its information from the network. Not just about how dinosaurs looked like or what time the next train to Den Haag leaves, but also about people."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/11/person_rating/
http://www.killerstartups.com/tag/PersonRatings/
...and also from our wonderful friends, The Dutch, who all learn English in secondary school but who oddly take responsibility for this paragraph describing PersonRatings:
"The gurus shoot as mushrooms from the ground. And rightly so. The average fellow has a large part of its information from the network. Not just about how dinosaurs looked like or what time the next train to Den Haag leaves, but also about people."
Monday, March 2, 2009
Why is This Blog on Blogger?
Maybe its a mistake from an SEO point of view not to have this blog be on the personratings.com domain. But, what happens in the likely event that PersonRatings is overwhelmed by massive quantities of traffic and the whole domain goes down? Where can fans of the site go for information on whats happening, or even be provided with a new domain for the site that does work? To the off-site blog of course. Am I wrong? By the way, the same goes for email, which is why we have both info@personratings.com and topic5@hushmail.com.
Let's Launch This Already
We've been working on the PersonRatings site for a long time and it finally looks like it's within distance of being functional. I just sent off five pages of revisions to our developers in New Dehli that should patch up most of our bugs. Once we're confident in the site's functionality and resiliency, we'll begin our promotional efforts in earnest. That is to say: a press release, a Techcrunch Elevator Pitch submission and a few emails to reporters. I'm convinced that focusing on improving the product is the most efficient marketing there is with a web 2.0 site like PersonRatings. If nobody notices our press release, We're going to be devastated.
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