ProductWiki = Shopping 2.0

At the PR Meet-Up earlier this, I was – once again – lamenting the fact Canadian Web 2.0 start-ups do such a a terrible job of waving the flag. This theory hit home again upon discovering that ProductWiki is based in Waterloo, Ont. ProductWiki is part of a new shopping trend in which consumers share their experience about products, stores and services. From what I can tell, it generates revenue from AdSense. In a blog post earlier this year, Peter Cashmore said ProductWiki’s goal to better shopping a better experience is great but “the only noticeable difference between ProductWiki and a review site like Epinions is that you can edit what others have written. I’m not sure that this is advantageous – not only are reviews (by definition) personal opinions, but wikis often create extra work where it’s not really required. Nonetheless, I think there’s a big opportunity to commercialize wikis – they are, after all, a highly efficient tool for collaborative creation.”