A new reputation management site is lingering on the horizon. This time, it's personal. Peeple is a new app that’s been developed for people to rate other people
Reportedly, the reviews that are publicly visible are only positive, and unfavorable ones can be reviewed and approved upon creation of an account- leading us to wonder what the incentive would be to ever create an account in the first place? Unless you have an inherent morbid curiosity. And certainly, no person in their right mind would approve unfavorable commentary about themselves, even if true. What’s even more frightening is the possibility that there are people who feel so wronged by another that they insist on trolling the internet for any last opportunity for another dig.
Similar to Yelp, a person can create a page for the individual they're reviewing, if it doesn't already exist, meaning you won’t even have consent to be listed publicly - provided the reviews are positive.
This leads us to think- aren't there ways to creatively post something that could fool the filters into sounding positive, but is actually hurtful?
As if our online lives weren’t complex enough, here comes a site that’s potentially detrimental to anyone's personal reputation. CEO’s, especially small business owners, should be particularly wary of something like this, which opens them to criticism from rivals. Let’s face it- when local competition is fierce, people can get petty.
We're also interested to see what the flagging process looks like for inappropriate content. Is it reviewed by an individual, or some bot simply looking for keywords? If it’s anything like Yelp, the likelihood of having a flagged ‘review’ removed is not in your favor.
We’ve also heard some small whisperings that this might be a cruel joke, but would the owners go so far as to post this on LinkedIn in an attempt to clarify the site’s purpose?
Right now there are a lot of unanswered questions, and initial reviews aren't favorable, but this is definitely a platform to keep your eye on. From a global perspective, it’s disappointing to think that we as people have been relegated to a reviewable, product-like commodity, even if under the guise of positivity. We’ll update you as we learn more.