Diss.com

Care to rate the new restaurant in town? Log on to burrp.com and tell the world about the fly in their overpriced soup. Just back from a holiday in Mauritius? Dissect your boutique hotel,down to the coffee stain on the carpet,on tripadvisor.com. Cheated out of product delivery on a shopping website? Shout it out on consumercomplaints.in. Got a grouse against your professor? Go incognito and rant out your frustration on myfaveteacher.com. Came across a negligent doctor? Warn prospective patients on ratemds.com.

In turns informative and futile,derisive and deferential,opinions hang like pollen in the digital air — anonymous comments following a news article,a flurry of Facebook “likes”,user reviews of the latest Android phone.

A survey by marketing research firm Nielsen last year found that Indians value online reviews and opinions more than anything else when buying consumer electronics (57 per cent),software (50 per cent),and cars (47 per cent). The report added that four in 10 Indians are more likely to share a negative product or service experience online than they are to share a positive experience. A cursory glance at opinions recorded on review sites confirms this. “Do not buy this airconditioner. It will leave you feeling hot and angry,” says a sardonic customer on mouthshut.com,popular among diligent shoppers. “I have a love-hate relationship with this foot cream,” says a reviewer on wiseshe.com,a beauty products website. “Even if you have to wait months to find a job,do not join this company,” advises one employee with an infotech company in Bangalore,in a mud-slinging post on rateyourjob-rateyourboss.com.

“We are the self-appointed critics of the world. There is no reason you should trust us,there is no reason you shouldn’t,” says Ashish Mishra,a Bangalore engineer and inveterate opinion-monger who compulsively rates every restaurant,bar,salon and garage he walks into,on sites like metrorater.com and zomato.com. Over a mojito at a bar in south Bangalore — glitzy counter,moderate pricing,too much grenadine,he pronounces — Mishra says public opinion has never mattered more. “Increasingly,you find yourself picking restaurants on the basis of online reviews. Earlier,you would learn about a restaurant from family and friends,or from newspapers. Now you do so on the basis of the experience of thousands of other diners,” he says. Indeed,in eateries across the country,framed plaques of critic-compiled eat-out guides are making way for fresh,green Burrp! certificates,in a salute to the wisdom of the crowds.

Rajni Kanth,who runs P!ng,a Chinese and pan-Asian restaurant in Koramangala,Bangalore,religiously replies to positive and negative feedback on Burrp!,and on occasion,has invited dissatisfied customers to enjoy a complimentary meal. The restaurant has garnered 159 reviews — an impressive number. “We get a lot of useful feedback — a user,for instance,suggested that starters be served at the table rather than being stocked at the buffet,and it has worked out well for us. But there have also been anonymous reviews that smacked of competition,” he says. The average,however,tends to be near-accurate,especially when the number of reviews is large. “We have 1,25,000 reviews from eight lakh users and 1,70,000 business listings in 150-plus categories — from restaurants and spas to local business. Consumer feedback is being taken seriously and replied to more than ever. It’s great to see this ecosystem evolve,” says Vishal Anand,who heads Burrp!

While anonymous counsel on restaurants is acceptable enough,rating one’s teachers on a scale of one to five is seen as offensive and insensitive. Rajat Agarwal,a software engineer with Accenture,Gurgaon,who set up myfaveteacher.com in 2009 while in college,says he regularly gets hate mail from professors. “We host 5,000-6,000 reviews on 1,200 professors from 325 colleges across India. Students are consumers of education,so there’s no reason they shouldn’t rate the service provided to them. Yet,in all these months,we have received only one positive response from a professor,who said he would work on becoming a better teacher. Why,we’ve even got threat mail asking us to delete comments or prepare to be sued,” Agarwal says.

The reviews,accompanied by ratings on an “egg scale” — a broken egg for an unfavourable review — range from adulatory to scathing,and are often edited,with words like “idiot” and “fool” replaced with asterisks. “Just a pretty face,” says a student’s review of a female computer graphics professor from a Karnataka institute,whose profile has been viewed over 350 times. Five other students agree by “liking” the rating. “Bond hai sir,” says a student about Professor Naveen Kumar,who teaches mechanical engineering and biodiesels at the Delhi Technological University (formerly Delhi College of Engineering). Despite favourable reviews,the professor,when contacted,said he does not condone rating teachers,“like other commodities”.

“People are very conscious about their image. While a positive internet rating won’t help a teacher earn a fortune,negative reviews can cause havoc,” explains professor Aniruddha Chandra,who teaches at the electronics and communication engineering department at the National Institute of Technology,Durgapur,West Bengal.

There are conflicting views on the utility of rating teachers and bosses. “More often,it serves as a venting mechanism,a conduit for your complaints that you are unable to express in person. These reviews are almost never written objectively,” says Mohammad (name changed on request),a 21-year-old from Delhi who rated his professor of English online,only to realise it changed nothing. “Yes,my friends had a good laugh at my comment,but that’s about it,” he says. Mohammad,now a content writer,says he doesn’t feel the need to rate his boss or company. “It doesn’t matter. If someone needs the job,he will take it,favourable review or not,” he says.

On the hiring side,one’s internet presence and the reputation it carries are starting to matter. Netra Parikh,a social media whiz,says LinkedIn profiles,and the recommendations they enclose,are almost always checked by hirers. “I get many calls and emails asking for recommendations,” she says.

The social Web is fast upstaging that talk with your colleague by the watercooler. Honestly.com,a professionals rating website,allows you to review and solicit reviews from people you have worked with by importing your Facebook and email contacts. On talentequity.in,India’s leading employers find themselves under the scanner. An independent website run by management professionals,it allows you to post reviews of your employer once in six months and share company overviews with friends on social networks. The reviews,which come with salary structure evaluations,are anonymous and based on certain parameters. Tata Consultancy Services,for instance,gets an average rating of 3.40 out of 5,aggregated from over 100 reviews, which declare it lacking in compensation and benefits but high on ethics and workplace relationships.

With job-seeking moving online,online workplace reviews are beginning to define the desirability of an employer. Indrojit D Chaudhuri,one of the founders of Talent Equity — the website came into being in August 2008 and has since aggregated 1.1 lakh reviews of over 2,500 companies — says,“Today,as employers are researching about prospective candidates online through professional and personal networking sites,candidates are also becoming smarter. Rather than depending on hearsay,they actively seek information about companies through LinkedIn,blogs,Facebook,and workplace rating sites like ours.” Chaudhuri says the trend will surely grow as “most of our decisions are based on recommendations from our network”.

While structured websites such as Talent Equity present more accurate average ratings,other forums simply let you share your experiences,good and bad,with the world. From telling on your ex-boyfriend on a singles website to airing your grievances on a complaints forum,you can vent all you want.

On consumercomplaints.in,posts deal with frauds of all sorts — from an errant construction contractor to a planned tour gone wrong. These posts are written in frustration and serve as warnings to potential consumers,says Chetan Narasimhamurthy from Bangalore,who registered on the website to write about a doctor in a leading private hospital,whose negligence he says cost him his child’s life. “I have filed an RTI and a case against the doctor. I wanted to let others know about him,” he says.

If this is anything to go by,it’s time to start reading — and writing — reviews online.