[mikedeng]

Thank you for bringing up great points! We've definitely thought a lot about your first question because you're right, if companies don't care very much about consumer reviews then our product isn't going to be useful. As it turns out, all the startups we've talked to so far have told us that they would love to get more and better consumer feedback. In the end, makers are building products for consumers, so it makes sense that makers want reviews from people they are selling to. It's true that press reviews are valuable, but how a consumer sees a product may be different from how a professional product critic sees the product. There are also a couple articles online that help substantiate our point. But you're right, having a rock-solid market research report to prove our point would be a great asset!

For your second question, we don't think the incentive will hurt the credibility of the review - the incentive exists only to encourage consumers to provide an honest review that will help the makers improve their products.

Thanks again for commenting :)

Edit: Ninja'd by my partner above!