Rich Barton

Doctors. Lawyers. Restaurants. Hotels. Soccer coaches. Wines. Books. Professors.

Everything and everybody will get some sort of Web rating in the future. That's the premise of an excellent piece in The Atlantic Monthly, which focuses on one of the biggest proponents of the Web rating phenomenon: Zillow.com co-founder Rich Barton.

Here's how author Kevin Maney starts the report:

Rich Barton, a superstar of the Internet era, settles across from me in a coffee shop in Centreville, Virginia, looking like a 1950s sitcom dad—glasses, preppy haircut, V-neck sweater. He built Expedia in the 1990s, co-founded the real-estate site Zillow in 2005, and most recently launched Glassdoor.com, which lets employees grade their workplaces for the public to see. When I wonder what Barton might get into next, he leans forward to tell me his investment mantra: “If it can be rated, it will be rated,” he says.

Barton -- also a backer of online attorney rating service Avvo -- has made this argument before. At the Drilling Down on Local conference last Spring in Seattle, I heard Barton say much the same thing about ratings. His idea is that consumers are looking at new ways to unlock information.

"This transparency of information is power," Barton said at the conference. "People have stormed the Bastille and are releasing that which was locked up previously. And with that information they are taking control of many different aspects of their lives."

How will ratings fit into this?

Maney offers a few ideas:

In theory, though, the more technology can help with decisions, the better life will be. Guided by ratings and personalized suggestions, I’ll more likely end up doing things I enjoy and using professionals who do their jobs well. On the other end, I won’t waste so much time or money trying to find the right kickboxing class or financial adviser. I can then devote my brain cells to higher-level problems the Web can’t yet solve, like how to get my teenagers to clean their rooms.

A good read. And interestingly, we just reported earlier today on another Seattle startup that's trying to improve ratings of restaurants, bars and businesses: GeoPage.

[The Atlantic story comes via Tom Seery of RealSelf, which happens to be a rating service for plastic surgeries. The Seattle entrepreneur, whose company is backed by Barton, also is mentioned in the piece.]