Where do you search for advice when you need to buy an expensive piece of some very specific equipment like ice climbing axe or a soft shell jacket? Looking for that kind of niche information online can be time-consuming and hard. You often end up jumping from site to site, trying to piece together the scattered pieces of information out there. Tribevine, a Finland-based start-up, addresses that problem with a product information community they built around outdoor and extreme sports. Tribevine uses the wisdom of crowds to create reliable and objective reviews of skiing and climbing equipment and present those in a structured and intuitive manner. The website has been operating in closed beta for the past six months. Its main users so far have been a couple of hundred professional athletes who reviewed loads of products. Next week Tribevine will launch their website into public beta to expand their userbase and grow traction.

When building Tribevine a lot of thought went into creating an intuitive browsing experience. 'For instance, it [Tribevine] automatically estimates the level of product knowledge of each user which is very important from the information quality point of view.” said Juho Risku, CEO. “Another good example is the concept of a tribe which enables the users to find the information that’s relevant from their interests’ point of view”, he added. Users create, share and review information about various products and receive a score according to their contribution's quantity and quality. Once the website is in public beta Tribevine promises to conduct competitions among users by rewarding people with highest scores with some quality sports equipment.

Tribevine partners with brands and webstores to collect information on their products. So far 162 brands are represented on their website and that number is said to grow once Tribevine is available to the general public. Though extreme outdoor sports like climbing are a niche market, it's a growing hobby with communities all across the globe. When united on a dedicated platform such communities can help each other save money and buy products that are best suited for the individual's need. If Tribevine manages to pull that off, it has a very clear value proposition.

The company was founded in 2008 by a team of five entrepreneurs lead by Juho Risku. This is Juho's third start-up: he previously founded an ad agency (Visualway Design) and a software company (Helmi Technologies). Tribevine is currently self-funded and the company's business model was not disclosed. How well it manages to convert the power of crowds into useful and meaningful experiences remains to be seen but the company's concept definitely has a lot going for it.

Here is what a product review looks like in Tribevine: