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"There's a subtle \u2014 almost imperceptible \u2014 momentum shift happening in the consumer review space. As technology advances and information becomes more portable and contextual based on location, the consumer review sites of five years ago are showing their age.\nA new crop of tools facilitating the consumer review experience have surfaced in recent months, partly based on the premise that the best review is the one that's most relevant to you right here, right now. \nGiven that review accuracy is colored by your location, immediate needs, relationships and attention span, the consumer review of today \u2014 as evidenced below \u2014 has taken on a new likeness, one that is more tailored to your individual needs. \nYour Location as Context\nFoursquare, Google Buzz for Mobile, Gowalla and Loopt have all helped us to rethink how we want to consume review content. As it turns out, what we want are recommendations that travel with us, making reviews best served with a side of geolocation.\nYour Needs, On Demand\n\nThe challenge with so many of the existing consumer review sites is that they're primarily destination sites where we can go to write our reviews, read other reviews and collect and store information relevant to personal food, shopping and entertainment interests. This flow, however, isn't conducive to satisfying temporal needs \u2014 think hunger \u2014 when they strike hard and fast.\nSo while Yelp, Citysearch and all the rest are great resources when you have some extra sit-down time, they don't exactly help you retrieve information when you need it most. There's a huge void right now when it comes to need-based, on-demand delivery of trusted user-generated content.\nSiri \u2014 a mobile app that bills itself as a personal assistant \u2014 may not house consumer reviews, but it does deliver them when you ask for them. The service serves up dynamic, need-based information all via natural language voice prompts like, \"Siri, where's the best sushi?\" Siri plugs-in to partner APIs, Yelp and Citysearch included, and provides you with answers that are relevant to what you want right now and where you are in the world.\nOf course Siri can also help with restaurant reservations, taxi reservations, flight status information and finding movies. It's this type of information delivery, however, that will redefine the way we consume consumer review content.\nBig Thinking, Smaller Packaging\nFoursquare has unofficially championed the bite-sized place review with their location-aware tips and to-dos, especially given the quality and quantity of editorial content made available in the snackable size.\nBig names from Zagat and the City of Chicago to the New York Times and Lucky Magazine have all signed up to seed Foursquare with their sophisticated insight for living better, faster and cheaper while out and about. Foursquare's impressive growth of late speaks to consumers' preferences for fast access to these high quality, bite-sized portions of consumer review.\nSure there's a time and place to read online user SusyCutie's detailed recounting of her restaurant experience two months ago, but it's not as convenient as picking up your mobile device and finding a Zagat-approved meal \u2014 at a restaurant where your best friend's the mayor \u2014 right around the corner.\nYour Friends, Your Benefits\n\nReviews mean so much more when they come from a trusted source. While most consumer review sites encourage friending and help to facilitate the filtering process, the winning formula has yet to surface. Services have already evolved from passively factoring friend relationships into the experience to taking a more active stance, but the next evolution of consumer reviews will create services that are entirely relationship-driven.\nWhile Facebook's location plans are still under wraps, the social network has become the defacto destination for real relationships and is perhaps best positioned to connect the dots between location-sharing/checkins, places (think Facebook Pages) and status updates as consumer reviews for a complete picture, even if it is only via APIs.\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, Moose2000, TommL and Thomas Hawk.\n\n\nFor more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2010/04/14/consumer-reviews/>