Tuesday, August 10, 2004
The New York Times Covers for Amazon
by Nicholas Stix
The following house editorial appeared in the August 3, 2004 New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/opinion/03tue4.html?pagewanted=print&position=
The Review of Reviews
he beginning of the end came last February, when anonymous book reviews on Amazon.com's Canadian site were posted with reviewers' real names. For some, it was an embarrassing unmasking. Several authors had raved about their own books. A number of reviewers had tried to skew the Amazon system, supporting friends or attacking enemies with anonymous or pseudonymous reviews. What kept this from being merely laughable is the scale of Amazon's business and the role customers' reviews play in its social and financial economy. Like eBay, Amazon.com is a community, and trust is one of its most important commodities. Just visit Amazon's discussion boards if you don't believe it.
That's why Amazon recently stopped accepting anonymous customer reviews, replacing them with a program called Real Names. Reviewers who use their own names will have a Real Name badge posted next to their reviews. (Pen Names are permitted, but they're less acceptable.) According to its Web site, Amazon believes that "a community in which people use their Real Names will ultimately have higher-quality content."
That is certainly possible. The problem is proving your identity. To get a Real Name, you must have a credit card on file or "a reasonable purchase history." What "reasonable" means is up to the company. If you use a credit card, your identity becomes synonymous with its number, which is not made public, of course. That may be a mordant comment on the state of modern identity, but, as some Amazon reviewers have noted, it's hardly an ironclad guarantee against reviewer fraud.
Real Names is as much about adding subtlety to Amazon's internal ranking system as it is about outing cheaters. In fact, there's something eerily recursive about the entire situation. Customers review Amazon's products. Customers also review other customers' reviews. Your "reputation" depends upon the reviews of your reviews, and your reviews get more weight with a "Real Name" badge, which prevents you from reviewing yourself. But in the discussion boards - which only true zealots see - reviewers often discuss reviews of their reviews. In the end, it's probably easier just to go to the library and browse.
____________________________________________________________________
That same day, I sent the following letter to the Times. As with all of my 100 or so letters to the Spin Cycle since 1997, the Times' censors, er, editors, consigned it to the "circular file."
To the Editor:
In “The Review of Reviews” (editorial, August 3), you write that amazon.com’s customer review system “is as much about adding subtlety to Amazon's internal ranking system as it is about outing cheaters.” But the biggest cheaters are some of amazon’s own employees, who for years have rigged the rankings.
In early 2000, I responded to an amazon solicitation (‘get free publicity through writing reviews’). Although an early review won me a $50 gift certificate, the process was fraught with mischief. While staffers claim that all reviews are posted in the order in which they are submitted, in fact, they immediately post their favorite reviewers’ work, and deal with reviewers they dislike by: 1. “Sitting” on reviews for weeks; 2. Never posting them; 3. Purging previously posted reviews and subtracting their votes, thereby dropping a highly ranked reviewer to the nether regions; and 4. Forcing a rising reviewer to start from scratch, by posting his new reviews to a separate customer page.
Sincerely,
Nicholas Stix
by Nicholas Stix
The following house editorial appeared in the August 3, 2004 New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/opinion/03tue4.html?pagewanted=print&position=
The Review of Reviews
he beginning of the end came last February, when anonymous book reviews on Amazon.com's Canadian site were posted with reviewers' real names. For some, it was an embarrassing unmasking. Several authors had raved about their own books. A number of reviewers had tried to skew the Amazon system, supporting friends or attacking enemies with anonymous or pseudonymous reviews. What kept this from being merely laughable is the scale of Amazon's business and the role customers' reviews play in its social and financial economy. Like eBay, Amazon.com is a community, and trust is one of its most important commodities. Just visit Amazon's discussion boards if you don't believe it.
That's why Amazon recently stopped accepting anonymous customer reviews, replacing them with a program called Real Names. Reviewers who use their own names will have a Real Name badge posted next to their reviews. (Pen Names are permitted, but they're less acceptable.) According to its Web site, Amazon believes that "a community in which people use their Real Names will ultimately have higher-quality content."
That is certainly possible. The problem is proving your identity. To get a Real Name, you must have a credit card on file or "a reasonable purchase history." What "reasonable" means is up to the company. If you use a credit card, your identity becomes synonymous with its number, which is not made public, of course. That may be a mordant comment on the state of modern identity, but, as some Amazon reviewers have noted, it's hardly an ironclad guarantee against reviewer fraud.
Real Names is as much about adding subtlety to Amazon's internal ranking system as it is about outing cheaters. In fact, there's something eerily recursive about the entire situation. Customers review Amazon's products. Customers also review other customers' reviews. Your "reputation" depends upon the reviews of your reviews, and your reviews get more weight with a "Real Name" badge, which prevents you from reviewing yourself. But in the discussion boards - which only true zealots see - reviewers often discuss reviews of their reviews. In the end, it's probably easier just to go to the library and browse.
____________________________________________________________________
That same day, I sent the following letter to the Times. As with all of my 100 or so letters to the Spin Cycle since 1997, the Times' censors, er, editors, consigned it to the "circular file."
To the Editor:
In “The Review of Reviews” (editorial, August 3), you write that amazon.com’s customer review system “is as much about adding subtlety to Amazon's internal ranking system as it is about outing cheaters.” But the biggest cheaters are some of amazon’s own employees, who for years have rigged the rankings.
In early 2000, I responded to an amazon solicitation (‘get free publicity through writing reviews’). Although an early review won me a $50 gift certificate, the process was fraught with mischief. While staffers claim that all reviews are posted in the order in which they are submitted, in fact, they immediately post their favorite reviewers’ work, and deal with reviewers they dislike by: 1. “Sitting” on reviews for weeks; 2. Never posting them; 3. Purging previously posted reviews and subtracting their votes, thereby dropping a highly ranked reviewer to the nether regions; and 4. Forcing a rising reviewer to start from scratch, by posting his new reviews to a separate customer page.
Sincerely,
Nicholas Stix
