Bizstartup.ie - NewsSocial review website start-up stands out

Whoseview.ie is a social-review based website that enables consumers rant or rave about local services such as restaurants, bars, beauty salons, hairdressers, butchers, cafes, fashion shops and car dealers, etc. The site was launched in July with 38,000 Dublin businesses and has recently been rolled out to Galway City.

Since opening its beta, Whoseview.ie is now achieving 1,500 visits a day, with members posting over 1,100 reviews. It has had 100,000 visitors since it has gone live. The goal is to concentrate on city locations, moving to Cork in November, before launching into the UK in 2010.

Whoseview.ie was founded by Helen McCarthy and developed in conjunction with Tom Hayes of Lightbox Digital. They are also supported by Enterprise Ireland and angel investors, who invested €120,000 in late 2008.

"Our site taps into the Irish culture of expressing opinions, be they funny, strong or wildly creative and we have a good community of people who share their personal recommendations with the world and their network of friends, through text, videos and photos,” explains Hayes.

Eammon Fallon of Daft.ie, and one of the judges at the Golden Spiders Awards, was quoted in The Sunday Business Post as saying: “Whoseview.ie, Pix.ie and Muzu.tv are all excellent examples of sites that are executing well in this area. It is very difficult for companies to 'manufacture' these conversations, let alone control them, however careful consideration of their content strategy helps.”

Pictured is Tom Hayes, with the Golden Spider that Whoseview.ie scooped at the recent Golden Spiders Awards