There are ideas that sound wonderful, on paper. Allowing users to review podcasts is such an idea.
I don’t trust Yelp reviews for Chinese restaurants. When I first came to the United States 9 years ago, I had very conflicting experience with Yelp. For those “horrible” Chinese restaurants on Yelp, I actually felt the food was pretty authentic. For those “great” ones on Yelp, I felt the food was horrible. Full disclosure: I lived in China for 24 years before coming to the US. I may know a bit more about Chinese food than most reviewers of Chinese restaurants on Yelp.
Gradually, I don’t trust App Store reviews as well. A few startup friends boasted how they used services to generate tons of 5-star App Store reviews for their world-changing apps; and those reviews look like real. This really reminds me that the only time I did an App Store review was to review my own app, since I started to use iPhone in 2008. It seems to me that people who get negative experience are more likely to review an app than those who get positive experience.
Then here comes podcast reviews. If you listen enough podcasts, you’ll know that hosts always ask listeners to review their podcasts on iTunes — they believe more positive reviews will boost their rankings in iTunes, which sounds reasonable, on paper. Is it true? Only Apple knows.
I’m a hard core podcast listeners. I don’t recall a time that I ever read those reviews on iTunes or on any podcast player app — well, the only podcast player app I use is Overcast, which doesn’t allow reviewing podcasts. So, podcast reviews are not for human beings to read, instead, they are for machines?
Negative reviews may be authentic, while positive reviews are likely fake. It’s not useful with too few reviews, while it’s likely fake with too many reviews. Either way, I treat podcast reviews the same way I treat Chinese restaurants reviews on Yelp. People have very different tastes.
Listen Notes is aimed to help surface niche but interesting podcasts that won’t get many reviews on iTunes (or buy many fake reviews). There are only 24 hours on a any given day. It’s better to invest time and energy in useful things — not podcast reviews.