Forrester Research and Open Ratings teamed up to incorporate
Open Ratings’ e-commerce rating technology into Forrester’s PowerRankings and
other future e-commerce ratings products.
The technology developed by start-up Open Ratings provides a means of
gathering and processing online survey data for e-commerce ratings. Forrester
said it will use
this technology to expand the data stream associated with PowerRankings —
unbiased rankings of e-commerce sites in the most popular categories.
“The Open Ratings technology provides the most robust survey platform for
e-commerce ratings we have seen,” said Bill Bluestein, Forrester’s president
and chief operating officer. “The technology resolves a number of key
methodological issues and enables real-time analysis of online survey data.”
Forrester will employ Open Ratings’ technology in PowerRankings surveys found
on the Forrester Web site and its affiliate sites. Forrester will also
incorporate Open Ratings’ unbiased ranking data and other intelligence into
its syndicated research products. In turn, Open Ratings will augment its
real-time user feedback with information from Forrester’s extensive
Technographics and PowerRankings databases, which make use of annual survey
data from more than 160,000 households.
Open Ratings offers an unbiased rating service that is designed to increase
the level of trust, reliability and brand recognition in eMarketplaces, with
an initial focus on the business-to-business market sector.
Co-founded by MIT Media Lab e-commerce expert Pattie Maes of Firefly fame and
Stan Smith, former vice president and general manager of Agile Software, Open
Ratings is backed by Atlas Venture and Nicholas Negroponte.