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PbReview “Changes Hands”

Or better know as selling it.

Last week, Andrew, the owner of PbReview, announced that he had sold Pbreview.com to Demand Media. No monetary amount was disclosed, but my guess is in the $100k range.

PbReview, according to Alexa, is the second largest paintball related site, right after PbNation, though that still puts it at around 40-80 thousandth overall. And the traffic has been pretty much lackluster, staying around that range with no obvious improvement.

From Top to Bottom: pbnation, pbreview, paintball.com, paintballheadlines

From a whois, the domain has already been transfered over to Demand Media meaning they can do basically whatever they want now.

But what’s most surprising to me is that most users aren’t mad or annoyed about the sale. They congratulate Andrew for it. Personally, I would be kinda annoyed if someone sold all my work (posts, reviews, etc) and kept all the money. But, I guess that’s just how it is nowadays.

PbShots. Useless.

MobZor, the social network site running phpFoX and now PHPizabi, has launched another turnkey site, PbShots, a paintball image hosting site.

It’s like Photobucket or Flickr, but crappier with horrible limits and only for a niche market. Like 20 MB of space, compared to 2 GB with Photobucket and 100 MB a month with Flickr. Or the 255 MB bandwidth limit (which is just under 13 people viewing your 20 MB limit), compared to 25 GB with Photobucket or unlimited with Flickr.

But if you don’t like those, you can upgrade for $3 a month, instead of using one of those better free services available that actually have a lot of experience with loads of traffic and image hosting, instead of just buying a script, slapping some logos on it, and trying to sell it.

PbNation Feedback – A Complicated Solution To Nothing

PbNation implemented a new feedback system yesterday.

First, in order to just to understand it, you have to read 3 pretty damn long posts. After that, it should be simple right? Meh. First, you have to find the little tiny link next to the report the post link. Great placement geniuses. Expect a lot a “Great Seller. A+++” reports in the future. After you click that link, you’re presented with some options. Like having to say if you were the buyer or seller, since it’s too stupid to figure that out from the thread.

Once you have figured out all that and there’s some feedback there, it’s all presented in an eBay-esque fashion. In fact, so eBay-esque that it’s a blatant rip-off of an eBay Feedback page.

PbNation:

eBay:

Yup, that’s a rip off if I’ve ever seen one. I guess copyright infringement doesn’t apply to them.

But, it’s not so much that’s it’s annoying and confusing, it’s the fact it doesn’t prevent anything it’s supposed to.

According to them, it’s much harder to commit feedback fraud. And by much, they mean slightly more complicated. Here was the old way to commit feedback fraud.

Create account
Post in feedback thread

Here’s the new way

Create account
Post in B/S/T thread
Post feedback

Mmm, 1 extra step. Hardly a deterrent. But hey, if they want to believe that, I guess they can, since ‘fake feedback’ isn’t even a reason for the feedback to be removed.

If PbNation is provided with a valid court order finding that the disputed feedback is slanderous, libelous, defamatory or otherwise illegal.

The feedback comment contains profane, vulgar, obscene, or racist language or adult material. Inflammatory language, such as “fraud, liar, cheater, scam artist, con man” etc., while strongly discouraged, will not be removed.

The feedback comment contains personal identifying information about another member, including real name, address, phone number, or e-mail address.

Negative feedback intended for another member will be considered for removal only in situations where the member responsible for the mistaken posting informs PbNation of the error and has already placed the same feedback for the correct member.

Now, for the best part, it’s really easy to screw someone over. Let’s say, you give someone feedback. They wait for the 24 hour grace period that allows you to edit it, then they give them some nice negative feedback. you can’t do much about it. Before, you could at least reply to it to let others know that that guy was crazy, but now, you can’t do crap. You can’t edit the feedback you gave. You can’t give them bad feedback in return (you already gave them feedback. I would constitute that as feedback fraud). You can report it, but according to the rules, it’s can’t be removed. You got yourself a nice frowny face stuck on your feedback.

And let’s say you only had 20 feedback prior to that, you now have a 90% feedback rating (Good = +1, Bad = -1, 20-1 / 21 = 90.47%). Personally, I wouldn’t ship first to you. A 90%? That’s just as good as a 20. Anything but 99% or 100% sucks, that’s just how it is.