Highlighting the best sites to find ratings and reviews for movies, flights, products, restaurants and services, music and more.
Flight Recommendations
Why it’s the best: Tells you if flight prices are going up or down.
It sucks to keep checking flight prices, only to find out that you could have paid a lot less if you pulled the trigger a week ago. Farecast helps you know “When To BuyTM, When To FlyTM, and Where To StayTM” using their technology and data. You can see how Farecast works here.
Product Reviews
Why it’s the best: Trustworthy product reviews in every category, not just electronics. Over 2.1 million product reviews on the site.
On Buzzillions.com, the majority of reviews are written by Verified Buyers – people who have been verified through the retailer to have actually purchased the product. You can also instantly see what the crowd thinks of a product based on the review summary of star rating, pros, cons, and the best uses.
They’re trustworthy because they don’t scrape the web for reviews – they directly collect thousands of reviews a day directly from people who purchased products from online retailers like Staples.com, REI.com, Walgreens.com.
Cheap Gas Finder
Why it’s the best: Find out where the cheapest gas is (in real time) within your zip code.
Yes, gas prices are high. At least with GasBuddy, you can find the best deal in town. They basically get real time price updates from volunteers (and they’re always looking for more).
Electronics Recommendations
Why it’s the best: They make it really easy to find community recommended electronics best suited for your needs.
Retrevo offers two very easy to consume recommendations – a Value recommendation and Community sentiment recommendation. Basically, they make it extremely easy for you to know if the product is good for the price you’re paying, and whether the community opinion on the product is positive or not.
Movie Reviews
Why it’s the best: 10 years of saving people from bad movies.
Rotten Tomatoes and their famous “Tomatometer” measures the percentage of positive reviews from ‘Approved Tomatometer Critics’ to give you the bottom line about a movie.
Local Service and Restaurant Reviews
Why it’s the best: Find out the good and bad for all your local needs.
Ever been caught with an expensive dinner with crappy food, a mechanic that over charges, or a really bad haircut? Yelp is THE site to see what others are saying and how they’re rating local services – everything from salons to dentists and doctors to restaurants and shopping. It’s also a great way to find great hole-in-the-wall food places you never would have known about otherwise.
Music Recommendations
Why it’s the best: “Last.fm connects you with your favorite music, and uses your unique taste to find new music, people, and concerts you’ll like.”
You can get a personalized radio station that will play songs you, based on what you previously liked. They also aggregate all the data from every single song people listen to, to show top weekly artists, what the entire Last.fm community is generally listening to, and connect you with people with similar music taste.
Leave a comment if know of a review or recommendation site that’s worthy of this list.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Thanks a lot! I knew of a couple of these but am always down for new finds. I will be sure to check them out.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Thanks. I haven’t tried any of these before.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I think you meant ‘Seven Reviews….’?
Most of those site are very helpful though, so I guess it’s okay.
July 8th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Nice work Ema. Some good sites. Thanks
July 9th, 2008 at 12:09 am
cool…nice list..^_^
July 11th, 2008 at 11:20 am
i havent tried any of these but now i will..
September 27th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Great to know. You have my vote.
September 5th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Hello, my name is William Knight. I’m the president of an organization called Citizens United Against Corporate Corruption. (CUACC) Our mission is to serve as a watch dog group and warn the public against America’s worst corporations.
Forest City Enterprises and Target Corporation are the two worst in our opinion.
However, right now we would like to give our gold medal award to three Chicago area businesses.
Philip L. Bernstein, Attorney and Counselor at Law wins our gold medal for all around excellence in the field of law.
A&V Auto glass wins our gold medal for their superb service in the automotive field.
RJF Red Moon, Inc. located in Bensenville wins our gold medal for their unsurpassed accomplishments in the debt management field.
Hats off to these three outstanding businesses.
October 24th, 2009 at 3:47 am
Citizens United Against Corporate Corruption would like to welcome their newest member. His name is Steve “Wheels” Gargano. Please read about it on this site of ours along with our opinion as to whom we think is running the “true” organized crime from Chicago.
cuaccforestcitypixetc.com/new2/
November 4th, 2009 at 4:20 am
Now let’s get back to business. We’re working on websites which will let consumers know why they need to avoid Target Strores and as of late State Farm Insurance. However, Forest City Enterprises is still our number one target. (No pun intended) Why? We’ll let our websites doing our talking here…
cuaccforestcitypixetc.com/
sequel.cuaccforestcitypixetc.com/
November 6th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Good list, but you didn’t include http://www.stylepath.com It’s the only shopping site the makes recommendations for style items like furniture, fashion, and decor based on each user’s unique personal taste, as opposed to comparing them to other people.
November 9th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Citizens United Against Corporate Corruption gets my big thumbs up. They’re the only organization I know, who’s willing to take on some the of most powerful corporations in the country head on, no holds barred.
The average person hasn’t heard of Forest City Enterprises. But “pound for pound” in a manner of speaking they are the worst in the country. If they were as big as Goldman Sachs the whole world would be in trouble. As it stands the CEO of their company is so arrogant he’s rubbing his collusion with the corrupt government right in our face as seen on this video….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O6OdK0CrAg&feature=related
November 14th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
RJF Red Moon did a great job for me too. I can see I’m not the first one to mention them. Did a great web design for me at an unbelievably low rate and got a corrupt company called Metro Self Storage off my back, who were trying to collect money I didn’t owe.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
I also had a terrible experience with Metro Self Storage. The one in Franklin Park.
They added in a bunch of BS late fees after I cancelled with them and they turned my account over to a real crooked collection agency, who I plan on suing.
Meanwhile, I give my thumbs up to Plaza Health 1 in the Harlem Irving Plaza. Service is very friendly and their prices are twice as good as GNC.