[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by Investment Painting Contractors

The list was online in 2000 you didn't have to pay anything to be on the List. You still don't have to pay unless you want to. As you say it would bump you up the list but would not get you ratings from your customers. We write this off as ADVERTISING. But it still doesn't write the testimonials, those are from customers. They do not tout one company over another. Dan I was sorry to hear about sell out a few years back, but the list is still viable if people just read it and the letters from customers. Living in Florida was a real eye-opener, I'm still baffled by the number of Painters in the paper that are licensed, when the painters licenses in sumpter county were discontinued in 2007. The fact that so many LLCs are not in good standing with the state, and when we present an insurance with our written bids people a dumbfounded. After 53 years in business Florida was a learning curve. Last point up north you go to JAIL for theft by contractor down here it's a CIVIL MATTER. Len the retired half of IPC

Maybe slightly off topic, but the Colony Plaza Tire Choice has a 4.5 out of 5 rating on Google with 244 customer reviews. But, if you search this web site, you will find a completely different picture. Customer ratings are not as trustworthy as they used to be. I have had Amazon venders try to bribe me for a 5 star rating.

[Dan9871]

One of the complaints against Angie's List was that it claimed it didn't depend on advertising even though it charged vendors for premium positioning. That's exactly how Google makes its money. There were claims Angie's List made most of its money off the vendors who paid for positioning. When I lived in MA, I met a couple of tradespeople who felt they lost business because they didn't pay for premium positioning. One was miffed at being asked to pay for positioning.

No doubt Angie was way ahead of her time starting her list on paper then transitioning to the internet when she saw the value of the internet. She probably isn't given enough credit for what she pulled off. She was one of the early people who made money off of "information pages" on the web, but giants like Google and Facebook overshadow her... but, at about the same time Google was getting started she had the same insight into what the internet was going to become and how to make money off of it.

BTW I was a subscriber to Angie's List for a while, but I never found it useful, but I'm sure others did.