It would be great to be comfortable that we are making a good choice when we commit our money or our time. That's the driving force behind the increasing visibility of review sites on the Web. It's too bad that many of these websites are just clever plans to get advertising revenue or sales commissions from the suggested products.
However, most site webmasters give access to their websites up for free, and the main payback, besides their own satisfaction, is the income they can offer. There's nothing wrong with that. The enormous popularity of TV has to do with this model. The primary question about a review site is if the reviews are legitimate, and therefore useful in our choices.
Sites that give only "Editorial" reviews may be legitimate, but only offer a very narrow view. Readers must judge the reviewers on their own merits. It's also worth noting if the reviewers have anything to do with the advocacy of the reviewed products, and if their business earns revenue from offering those products. User reviews are harder to locate. User review sites are much more difficult to create. and require more oversight and work. They have to allow for users who can have difficulty with the technology and be able to deal with spammers. But there are a few websites to help us.
For yogis, there some sites around that have product reviews, but it is difficult to discover reviews of yoga studios, retreats, workshops and yoga teacher training programs. Even harder to findare user reviews in these categories. That's why I've made a listing of the websites I've discovered on the Internet.
YogiReviews.com
A relatively new site, this looks like the most comprehensive and has user reviews of yoga classes, studios, workshops, teacher certifications, yoga retreats, mats, clothing, yoga supplies & accessories, videos, CDs, online courses and well, just about everything related to yoga. There are star-type ratings covering different criteria for each listing type. It's easy to find what you want through the search boxes, and everything is arranged not only by basic categories, but by yoga styles and location (where appropriate). You can also click on a list of the top reviewed listings.
Users are free to create their own reviews (and can even create new listings if a studio or product they like isn't already there). You can also make a comment on an existing review, and may even start a discussion. Reviews can be made without an account or logging in, but if you do open an account, you can easily access your reviews, listings, and favorites.
The website is based upon an huge free yoga directory with all the categories discussed. A free account is needed to create a new listing. The writer can then edit their own listings. New listings and reviews are checked first by the editor of the site.
www.YogaJournal.com
Yoga Journal is the market leader in the print world of yoga. Their associated website also is very popular. They offer some product reviews, although these are almost hidden in their Lifestyle department. There is no clear method to search the review area, but there are links to the more recent and popular reviews. Reader comments can be posted.
www.expotv.com
This is a fun site if you want to have a few miinutes of fame. The website accepts video reviews from visitors which look genuine. They can be entertaining to watch, but it takes a lot more time to look at a video clip rather than breezing through written material. They do have a star rating arrangement which gives a quick thumbnail view, but it doesn't give you how many people voted to create the indicated rating.
At the time of this writing (July 2009) there are only 39 video reviews in the yoga area and there isn't a way to sort so users must go through a number of pages of listings to see what they have.
www.geocities.com/yogasimple/yoga_video_reviews.html
This Geocities site is always near the top in a Google search for yoga reviews, but unfortunately is has only short editorial reviews concerning about 12 videos. But the choices are very good - the reviewed videos are some of my favorites.
www.RateYoga.com
This is a very nice site with an lovely layout and great review layout that has a rating system and ability to leave comment. Its main restriction is its focus specifically on things about Ashtanga Yoga. The site does not yet have many reviews posted. I look forward to seeing this site grow and expand.
yoga.about.com
About.com is a very large, busy website with data on lots of types of areas of discussion. The yoga department does have a number of reviews of books and dvds, however they are a little difficult to dig up. There are links to some arbitrary reviews on the primary yoga page, and a handfull of books and video listings are linked to reviews beneath them. There are links to add vistor reivews as well.
www.Amazon.com - www.PriceGrabber.com - www.Shopping.com
These, are some of the huge retailers that have user reviews. Amazon is likely the most helpful of these for yoga practitioners, at least with regard to yoga products & books. Amazon visitors are quite open about sharing their opinions. The limits are that they just have products sold by Amazon, which leaves out many great, smaller focused yoga companies. And of course, there won't be any mention of retreats, workshops etc.
Other Ideas
For retreats, you may have some success searching for the specific business on the web - you might be able to locate a few reviews on a travel-oriented site. In addtion, the some studio sites show a handful of reviews of their own operation.
As the online yoga world develops, a few of these websites will probably grow, and new ones will be created. The helpfulness of the well made review sites develops from the help of its users. So take a look at some of these places and post your comments or reviews - the practitioners that follow you will learn from your effort and insights.
