On the Internet, Everyone's a Critic But They're Not Very Critical

Wall Street Journal ^ | Oct, 5, 2009 | Fowler, DeAvila

[Suvroc10]

The Web can be a mean-spirited place. But when it comes to online reviews, the Internet is a village where the books are strong, YouTube clips are good-looking and the dog food is above average.

One of the Web's little secrets is that when consumers write online reviews, they tend to leave positive ratings: The average grade for things online is about 4.3 stars out of five.

[Suvroc10]

Just thought I'd give everyone a little early morning break from the non-stop and hardcore focus on the political by posting this nifty little news tidbit that caught my eye a day ago. This article certainly confirms what I've been suspecting about online review sites like Amazon for some time, namely that their sites are much toooo skewed toward positive reviews (making the value of their ratings and reviews quite useless) at the expense of balance, honesty and the whole truth. Note also a certain reviewer by the name of Marc Schenker who's profiled in said article. I got a real good kick out of his MO because he apparently has taken it upon himself to forcibly introduce much-needed fairness on one site, Amazon, by exclusively writing negative reviews for items that deserve it. He's even got an ironic sense of humor, using the pseudonym of "JerkFace." Funny!

[Red in Blue PA]

Part of the reason for this (at least in my experience) is that I will only spend time reviewing those things I absolutely love, or despise.

So almost all of my ratings are 1 or 5 stars......but I only review things every once in a while.

[B.Lyle]

This is the worst article I’ve ever seen on this site. What the hell were you thinking?

[Elsie]

LOL!

[agere_contra]

LOL, nice.

[pyx]

Why are you using the Wall Street Journal as the source of this article and then using the IP address 74.125.155.132 as the reference?

[SkyPilot]

Lighten up. That link takes you the article.

[Tribune7]

It looks like a Google cache location, which might be smart since WSJ will probably take the article down after a bit.

[Publius6961]

Most reviews of mechanical and/or electrical items are hilarious. So many are written by the clueless who have owned the item less than 30 days.

How useful is that?

They are clever and delusional. Of course it's 5 stars. They would never buy junk, they have the best taste and they need reinforcement for their cluelessness.

For me the ideal site for reviews of, say, appliances, would be one limited to posters whose items have just failed.

Now, that would be useful!

[underbyte]

There are many sides to this

I do “Legal Buzz Marketing” On computer forum user groups. I identify myself give away product to forum members and they post their test results. Works well they get free stuff and they can like it or not like it and I consolidate it in a final chart of users results. Great advertising vehicle, upfront, honest, everybody wins.

There is a Form of “Stealth Buzz Marketing” Where companies or competitors monitor the forums and when a negative post shows up about their product or a competing product is getting favorable attention they send a team of flying monkey’s pretending to be fellow users to crush the opposition with overwhelming criticism with multiple posts at the same time posting numerous glowing experiences of their own product.

I have been called a liar, dishonest, a cheat, that my product smells, etc. lol, the worst that can be said is said

The upfront methods work for me as I am doubling sales every month hence an increasing nastiness as I grow more of a threat.

From what I have seen in my little niche I would not be surprised that every product that has an online presence is subject to this kind of stuff. Just follow the money.

I would like to see a few $11,000 fines and a few competitor lawsuits to tighten things up a bit. Free markets are one thing,deceptive marketing should be stamped out.

[Cacique]

btt

[HiTech RedNeck]

Well there are more issues than sheer reliability. There’s also effectiveness and convenience.

[teeman8r]

this post sucks... i give it 4.3 out of 5 stars.

teeman