Reasons people will post reviews of a product on Amazon: 1) That's where they bought it -- sometimes when I buy something at Amazon I get an email from them as

Reasons people will post reviews of a product on Amazon: 1) That's where they bought it -- sometimes when I buy something at Amazon I get an email from them asking me to review it 2) Sharing one's opinion is its own reward 3) Lots of people visit Amazon, so your opinion is going to be meaningful. What's more, your review will appear on the page for the product itself. 4) If you use Amazon a lot, you look at the reviews before buying. This means you are aware that they exist -- you trust them, maybe. Having the chance to add to a corpus of reviews you use and respect is a powerful incentive. I'm not sure a plain-vanilla reviews site will be able to compete successfully with Amazon reviews. Maybe find some niche, like IMDB (movies) or Harmony Central (musical instruments) or KVR Audio (music software).