I really like the idea of Angie's list, but they literally have nothing without the open, honest reviews of actual consumers of business services. I am in a rather large metropolitan area (Los Angeles) that has not yet been fully immersed by consumers who are writing reviews for Angie's list. That is, there are literally thousands of excellent businesses that don't exist on Angie's list for Los Angeles, so when you type in your zip code and look for businesses you may end up with ones that are 10s of miles away and in LA that means possibly over an hour or two or three or four of commute time to get to a business or for a business to get to you. In reading a few critiques of Angie's list I see that the annual fee in LA is possibly lower (~$12 + $5 sign up fee with coupon) than other metropolitan areas where there is better penetration, but the level of penetration in a particular metropolitan area is not particularly clear when you sign up. There are other services that are free like Yelp that are more comprehensive for LA at this time. That doesn't mean that a few years from now that Angie's list won't be more comprehensive, but as of this writing (July 2010) I am disappointed and I'm guessing many new subscribers in LA will be too. BTW, cancellation does not get you back your money, but does prevent them from automatically renewing your annual membership each year, so I'm guessing there will be quite a few alienated subscribers in LA for a few years. Another problem I can see with Angie's list is the possibility that a business's friends and relatives could stuff the ballot box, so to speak. Inversely a business could negatively influence the rating of a competing business using the same friends and relatives. I don't know what provision Angie's List or any other rating service, for that matter, makes for that possibility, but I'm guessing that's pretty hard to track.

I saw an advertisement for Angie's list the other day in the news. I took a look at the Angie List website, and had a couple of concerns about it. First of all was the price. I wonder if Angie's list realizes that the Better Business Bureau offers the same type of report for no charge to the public. The second big concern I have is to the accuracy of the review process. It seems that anyone that is a member is able to report on any company. If I wanted to get some free advertising, I could put my company in there and give it a fantastic review I would just have to lie about my affiliation with the company. I could even have my employees, friends, and family do the same thing for some extra money, and with those 10-20 reviews I could probably decieve at least one person into utilizing me, making the $60 I spent on it well worth it(a very good price if I'm charging $1200 to put on a new roof for example). Based on what I saw, there doesn't seem to be any accountability with their review process. Another thing that is very prevalent to me is the fact that they are taking complaints on the companies to pass along to the public. Again this is something the Better Business Bureau does. It irritates me that a company (Angies's list) would charge me to do something that another company is already doing for free. Honestly, I'm going to have to stick with getting my Reports from the Better Business Bureau which to me seems like much more accurate(and unbiased) information at a much better price tag. I gave them a 1 for completely ripping off the Better Business Bureau's idea, and for charging for a service that others are providing for free.