iKarma.com - Online reputation building

In any business, your reputation is everything, and your business will grow significantly if your clients choose to recommend your services to others. iKarma is a site that makes this possibility much easier and more global. The site allows businesses to be reviewed and rated by clients or users, who in turn are rated by the site according to their user profile and activity. In this sense, it´s like you are getting the scoop from a buddy about a consulting service (or anything else) you are considering using. Supposedly you can trust the person giving you advice based on his profile and what the site believes is the person´s trust level. The reviews are personalized and helpful, and each company or professional service provides a description about itself. You can search by business name, location, or tag, and the site provides Google maps to assist in pinning down the location you want.

"Based in Jupiter, Florida, iKarma Inc. specializes in providing reputation and customer feedback systems for businesses and professionals. Our mission is to help create prosperity and commerce by bringing greater trust and openness to business transactions. iKarma, iKarma.com, eReputation and eReputation.com are all servicemarks owned by iKarma Inc."

The site does a good job of providing enough flexibility for the users to really express themselves honestly about a business. There is equal opportunity here for the consumers and the businesses. Consumers get the benefit of learning about businesses they are considering patronizing, and businesses get advertising and reputation building. Even if the site chooses to charge usage fees, it will still be a good deal for both parties.

Despite the way the site rates and reviews users, it is still hard to know whether you can trust a reviewer. Essentially, the person could be the friend or family member of someone in the business, and we would have no way of knowing that.