Who reviews products on Amazon.com

[pbray]

Cornell study unmasks Amazon's product reviewers.

What Shoppers Don't Realize About Amazon's reviews.

And the opinion piece Are Amazon reviews corrupt?

Interesting points about what motivates people to write reviews, and how the demographics of the reviewers differs from the demographics of the average Amazon.com shopper.

I've long thought that the so-called "customer" review function ought to be restricted to people who have actually bought the product from Amazon. But that would immediately knock out all of Amazon's top customer reviewers, so there's no chance it will happen.

Comments

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Right, it's the calling them "customer" reviews that is misleading. Not to mention that many of the top reviewers can't possibly read the volume of titles that they are reviewing. One top reviewer posts thousands of reviews a year--many of which appear to be based solely on catalog or backcover copy, and which often get key details wrong. (This reviewer also loves everything, giving books 4 or 5 stars.)

Authors have complained to Amazon about these kind of reviews, but Amazon has no interest in changing their system.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

You kind of have to wonder what's in it for someone who doesn't even bother to read the books ... I mean, if free books to read aren't your motivation for writing buttloads of Amazon reviews, what is? o_O