PlanetFeedback Ratings Comparison (between Amazon.com and B&N)
Nice feature, even though these guys don't bother to answer the feedback I sent them.

Here, B&N apparently gets more complaints and less compliments than Amazon.com. However, we don't know how many feedbacks are included in these ratings, so it's hard to assess their statistical significance. Overall restaurants get the most complaints (*), but there's no way to know whether McDonald's alone is dragging the whole industry. There's no guarantee either that a few employee-submitted letters won't swing the rating one way or another.

Since getting through PlanetFeedback's process is more time consuming than instant online polls, results are less likely to be biased by ballot-stuffing. People are more likely to send a real feedback relative to their personal experience with a company. And PlanetFeedback should gather a more neutral crowd than, say, Slashdot. I'd still take these ratings with a grain of salt though.

Across industries suggestions account for only about 6% of all the letters sent. Is it because people don't care, or because this site focuses on rants and raves? (Or does it focus on itself?)

Random forecast of the day: PlanetFeedback to merge with Gomez (one of the latest cancelled IPOs.)

08/04/01 update: PlanetFeedback updated their explanation: "To appear in Ratings, a company must have received a minimum of 50 letters from PlanetFeedback users. Ratings are based on the most recent letters sent to a company or industry (up to a total of 250) and are updated daily. They are based on aggregated users' opinions and are not the results of a random sample." BTW, Amazon and B&N are a lot closer now than they were 9 months ago.

(*) I removed a broken link, now I can't find a comparison of (dis)satisfaction between industries.

10/30/01 update: I did a wrong forecast: Intelliseek and PlanetFeedback merge.