Thebestof is an online business directory and community website franchise. The sites promote more than 65,000 SME businesses, providing an optimised online presence that many would otherwise struggle to create and manage on their own.

It has been ranked in the UK's 100 most popular sites by independent web traffic monitor Alexa.com and attracts more than one million users each month.

Chief executive Nigel Botterill said the group's new speech bubble logo reflects the increasingly interactive nature of the website in line with social networking sites like myspace, facebook and bebo.

The social media aspect and user-generated content also take a leaf from sites such as www.tripadvisor.com that draw on the real experiences of travellers and add another dimension.

People who do business with the companies listed on thebestof are encouraged to write a review of their service. But can this work in a community like the Isle of Man?

Yes, in part. But I can see limitations too. My mother always told me: 'If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.'

This rule seems to hold true at thebestof because a quick trawl through the site failed to reveal even a single negative comment.

Local franchisee Lynne Gumbleton said: 'All comments are moderated. We screen for comments that are rude, personal or malicious, but in truth, we've never had anything like that. We have a very strict policy about posting all feedback, both positive and negative, and all our clients understand that public criticism on the site is a real risk.'

There is a mechanism for business owners to reply to comments and Lynne said that most see the feedback as an opportunity to improve. Even in the UK, only one per cent of comments are negative.

Personal recommendation from real customers can be incredibly compelling.

However, it loses context in the absence of any constructive criticism.

People who contribute to tripadvisor.com have already been and gone from the hotel and it is very unlikely they will be sitting next to the hotel manager in a café the next day. So they feel perfectly comfortable giving genuine criticism.

When there is very real chance that you might run into someone you just flamed online in the supermarket, most people will not take the risk, no matter how dissatisfied they are.

Of course this does not seem to hold true for the nice people in manxforums.com. But they, for the most part, participate under pseudonyms and can hide behind this anonymity. Participants inthebestof do not have that luxury.

Another issue is that it seems as though Lynne herself is the most frequent reviewer of companies on thebestof, which further undermines the credibility of the social media aspects of the site.

But I think this is because the feature is a recent addition to the site and, once real users start to contribute, we will see less of Lynne as a commentator.

The company is about to launch an online voting function that will allow people to take part without using their names, so that might redress the balance.

I think, overall, it is a model that works. And I'm not alone.

The company recently was recently named number three in this year's Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100 annual league table.


>>Sherrilynne Starkie is the managing partner of Strive Public Relations, a communications consultancy in the Isle of Man. She provides her views on business and technology each week in Tech Talk. Visit her business blog Strive Notes for frequent updates.
www.strivepr.com