Let’s start with this: why would someone fake Twitter followers? Well, the answer is simple. Success on Twitter is measured by the number of followers each account has. Hence, if you want to be seen as an influential person, then you need a lot of followers. The same is true of book reviews. The more reviews you have at a place like Amazon, the more likely it will be that you will be seen as an important author.
Why does this work? Well, people are herd animals and they do what everyone else does. So when they see two books and one has 1,000 reviews and the other has 10, they will instinctively drift to the first.
But do you know what? Just as you can’t trust the fake Twitter followers, you can’t trust any of the reviews you see at Amazon or Yelp either (or anywhere else online). Why? Because there are too many people who have incentives to fake their reviews. Consider these examples:
● Authors: Authors know that reviews sell books, so they have an incentive to put up fake “highly positive” reviews. It won’t surprise you to learn that many authors do this, and I don’t just mean reviews by families and friends. I am aware of authors who have posted dozens of fake reviews to their accounts. One woman actually posted two glowing reviews within hours of any negative review that appeared. And each of those new reviews would go out of their way to contradict the negative reviews. I suspect that publishers and agents play this game too.The end result of all of this is that I would bet that maybe 25% of all the reviews you see online are false reviews posted by people with the intent of manipulating you rather than informing you. So which reviews can you trust? The answer is: none.
● Competitors: People are constantly getting caught smearing their competitors online. What’s bizarre about this, at least in books, is that there are way more than enough sales for everyone and a rising tide means more sales for everyone. Nevertheless, there are authors who think it helps them to tear down the competition and they go around and secretly leave devastating reviews to their competitor’s books. I’ve had this happen several times to my books and even been able to track it back to specific authors.
● Trolls: Believe it or not, there are people who get off attacking products online. You can spot these people because their reviews are typically way off base and so negative that they border on personal attacks. And if you check out the other reviews written by these people, you will typically see that they hand out nothing but 1s and 2s, and they do it to dozens of products.
● Politics: Anything that ends up on the political radar will be massacred by the other side typically without a single “critic” actually purchasing the product.
● Top Reviewers: Some places have created a series of “awards” and “distinctions” for people who get the most positive feedback on their reviews. This status brings with it certain benefits. One of those benefits is that these people get a lot of free products in the hopes that they will leave a glowing review. Here’s the thing: to keep getting positive feedback on their reviews, these people have learned to only say good things.
● Paid Reviews: Finally, there are companies out there who will post reviews in exchange for money.
Even worse, there are people who set up whole websites to sell their products, and these are often flat out fraudulent. To give an example, try doing a general search for the dangers of diet supplements. The first hundred or so responses you get will be created by the manufacturer, who has set up dummy websites to sell these products. At first glance, these websites look like individuals who bought the product, used it, liked it, and wrote about it. But if you look closely, you’ll see the telltale signs of something created by an unethical marketing department.
Interestingly, they also clog up the “negative” sites. In fact, if you click on many of the sites that at first appear to be exposés on the product, you will be shocked to discover that each of these supposed skeptics tells you how skeptical they were because all those other products out there are so harmful so this must be a fraud, right? Well, gosh darn it, if this product isn’t different. Not only does this product work, but angels sang when I used it.
When you do find a legitimate debunking, typically done by a doctor or consumer rating organization, you will see their comment section filled with utter hate. That’s the manufacturer’s unethical marketing team again.
The sad truth is that you can’t believe anything you see online that is supposed to tell you what the customers really think. Most of it is fake, and you have no way to tell the difference.
Interestingly, there have been several instances lately where companies have started suing people who leave negative reviews. The most recent examples have been restaurants and hotels, each of which won their suits. So do I support this? Absolutely. If you’re going to attack a product online, then you better be truthful about your attack. Hopefully, this will start to make people think twice.
At the same time, I would actually expand the power of these lawsuits. If it is a competitor, then there should be a fine attached... a hefty one as this is a deceptive trade practice. At the same time, if a company gets caught posting their own fake favorable reviews, those should be fined as well for the same reason. As much as I dislike bringing the legal system into life, I am starting to think that the legal system is needed to rein in the worst misbehavior on the web.
Thoughts?
If reviews are worth nothing then what is a good way to find out if books are good or not?
ReplyDeleteThat's the problem, Kit. You kind of have to go back to older methods -- (1) ask people whose views you trust, (2) or rely on larger reputation like a newspaper review or are they a best seller, (3) or, in the case of someone like Amazon, download the samples and see if you like it.
ReplyDeleteBut books are cheap and if they suck you don't really lose much -- a couple dollars and a few hours. The bigger issue is what do you do when you're looking for a hotel for a honeymoon, a plumber, or a several thousand dollar piece of electronics or something important like that. Since you can't trust pretty much anything you find in this new "online" world of ours, you really do need to learn to go back to older ways of sorting the good from the bad from the fraudulent.
Ok. Thanks. I've heard stuff about companies doing this. Sony even had a fake movie reviewer out there and got caught.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, the most annoying pet peeve about kindle books is when, say, a fairy tale or myth anthology costs more than $2 and has no Interactive Table of Contents. GRRRRR!!!!!!
And since I had no idea it did not have one I've spent $2 on an anthology that has no way of navigating it.
You may mock it as trivial but its damn annoying. ;-)
How do we know you ain't with Anarchy Ltd and you have a hidden agenda to overthrow Big Twitter, and spread H8 n' stuff? Eh, Andrew? LOL!
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, I concur. I have no empathy for fraudsters, especially those who spread lies and slander.
I mean, if it's true then fine, but there should be a price to be paid for stepping over that line.
BTW, I really appreciate the new, simplified word veri.. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteSimple Ben
Kit, Movie companies were famous for that. They would take words out of context to make a bad review sound glowing and when all else fails, they invented critics.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about companies who don't take advantage of all the cool stuff the Kindle can do. You can actually link footnotes to the web. You can do the table of contents thing, obviously. There are lots of things.
Ben, Because you can trust me! LOL! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI didn't know the word verification was on again? It should be off. I'll go turn it off.
I agree. If you cross the line to lies and smears and slanders, or other deceptions, then you should be help accountable.
Well, since ya got an Uncle Sam avatar you MUST be trustworthy. I'm purty sure that's in the Constitution or somethin'. :)
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
ReplyDeleteYep, it is amazing. I guess they think they are being really clever by taking short-cuts like that.
If it costs $0, no table of contents is a mild annoyance at most. I knew there was probably not going to be one when I purchased it for free.
But if, say, The Arabian Nights costs $11 and there is no table of Contents, someone needs to be fired. Would it really have cost too much to add one there?
Wow, now word veri is invisible! Cool!
ReplyDeleteVery Simple Ben
You can't trust those Arabians, Kit. First they'll come for the table of contents. what's next? :)
ReplyDeleteBen, Exactly. I have a trustworthy avatar! LOL!
ReplyDeleteKit, The stupid thing is that it's really simply to include a table of contents. Word does it automatically with the push of a button and it's already interactive. So the people who don't include it are just being lazy. Or they don't know what they're doing, really.
ReplyDeleteWhy did tar and feathering go out of style? I bet most folks would approve of it for these scoundrels. Plus it would really discourage it in the future.
ReplyDeleteOk, maybe I'm goin' a wee bit overboard but think about it...
Its long been my pet theory that while advertising generates awareness, it doesn't necessarily create demand and positive word of mouth has more impact in the short and long terms than advertisement. I also think the word of known people counts for a lot more than the praise of random strangers.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about customer reviews (at least for me as a customer) is that people who care enough to take the time to write reviews tend to feel very strongly about the product so reviews almost invariably run to the extremes.
I don't think the legal system can do much to rein in web misbehavior. If a bunch of lawsuits were filed against negative reviews on Amazon, I guarantee a website would spring up that offered the ability to post anonymous product reviews and that it would start getting lots of traffic and that the negative reviews would get even more vitriolic.
I know there is a standard of proof such lawsuits have to meet but a lot of people probably wouldn't want to run the risk of being sued.
I trust very little on the web. For stories that are of interest, you should seek as many alternative sources as possible.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked for a small local Internet marketing company, that's where I found out about fake Twitter followers. Even this company had them. Apparently, they are very easy to purchase! And on my first day, my boss asked me to write them a positive review on Google - I had just started and they asked me to give them five stars. What a racket...
ReplyDeleteAs for Hollywood, Sony got in trouble for creating a fake reviewer: David Manning. I can only sit back and laugh at this and I'd love to see another studio try to resurrect the idea - it would make a great post-modern marketing gag for people in the know. :-)
Andrew, I agree. Just because someone is committing slander/libel or false advertising on the internet (semi) anonymously doesn't mean they should escape the consequences.
ReplyDeleteOn tables of contents, etc. I also agree, there is very little excuse for not including one. I've formatted a couple myself, not hard at all. Word makes it easy, but even if you're inclined to take it further, e-books are basically stripped-down webpages (not sites, pages). Just a little basic HTML knowledge is all that's required. I daresay, it's more involved just making the final conversion to each site's preferred standard than it is adding the TOC, so even if it's a free, public-domain book released as a labor of love, there's really no excuse.
I'll confess that I do use the reviews, but I've developed some strategies. When looking for a technology product, such as a computer, I scan the reviews for the telltale signs of the geeks. These are they guys who are so into the technology, they leave long, detailed reviews of pros and cons, sprinkled with technical jargon. There's a sense of balance in the review that offers credibility. Their passion is the technology, so they tend to have an unemotional review.
ReplyDeleteBook reviews are trickier. A long word count helps, but I'm really looking for indicators that the person actually read the book and I look for patterns among that type of review. At the end of the day, I won't spend a lot of time on the reviews for two reasons: first, like Andrew says, it's a book and the cost of a bad choice is small; second, I'm a geezer, which means I was buying books before the internet existed and I bought them based on word of mouth and what was written on the cover - which is entirely promotional.
They say "don't judge a book by it's cover." Well, why not? There's a lot of information on the cover. The author's name, a story synopsis (which provides an insight into the style of writing) and often some blurbs from other authors. That really does tell you a lot about the quality of the book.
Have I made mistakes? Yes. But the worst only caused me to believe in the Bermuda Triangle for most of my high school years (it was the '70s, so cut me some slack ;D. Then I read an article debunking it and offering the sage advice to check the references in all those books - sure enough, it was a group of writers all referencing each others work to create an air of academic rigor (much like the Global Warmists today).
The internet can provide a lot of good information, but it does require some discretion to filter out the snake oil.
Btw, Andrew, that graphic is terrific.
ReplyDeleteThanks KRS! I did create the image, but sadly, I've seen many reviews that are at about this level. I actually saw a guy once who gave a 1 star and wrote: "This book takes place in Pakistan. I hate Pakistan and I'm not going to read it because of that." Huh?
ReplyDeleteHow fair was that to the author?
Ben, The price of tar went up too high! ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnthony, I think advertising is effective for creating awareness and an image, but not at causing sales. And yes, word-of-mouth is much more important than anything.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of customer reviews though, I can tell you that they directly influence sales. I've seen it myself and I've spoken with other authors who have experienced the whole range of effects -- two bad reviews early on can stop sales dead and kill a book. Even a good review that says the wrong thing can stop sales. Books with more reviews outsell the others. And the % score is critical -- apparently, a huge chunk of people rely on that without ever actually looking at the reviews (that's why a glowing 3-star review hurts rather than helps).
I do think the legal change will help because right now people think they can say whatever they want. If people start getting sued, that attitude will change and "real life" rules of behavior will start to creep in.
BTW, Anthony, I've seen authors who have had troll reviews kill their books. They unpublished their books and published them as new (which wipes out all the reviews) and their sales returned to normal.
ReplyDeleteJed, Exactly. The internet should not be trusted.
ReplyDeleteScott, Apparently, there is a huge market for fake followers and the such. People think it matters. And to a degree I know it does. People go where they think everyone else goes.
ReplyDeleteI remember the Manning scandal. I also remember some studios simply making up headlines. And I remember Roger Ebert saying that he had to be careful how he wrote reviews because the studios would pull out individual words to make his negative reviews seem positive.
tryanmax, Amazon actually takes .doc files and formats them automatically. So it's super easy to format a Kindle book. Anything Word does, Kindle will repeat.
ReplyDeleteI agree that slander is slander and should be actionable.
KRS, The geek reviews are often helpful, especially when you follow the guy's reviews and you see bunches of reviews like that on different tech products (otherwise, you could be looking at a company salesman). That said, you do have to learn to decipher some of the geek speak as a lot of these guys will talk about things that won't affect an average owner.
ReplyDeleteI also look for contrary clues in positive reviews. For example, I was looking at a hotel which looked beautiful (expensive too), but didn't show a photo of their bathrooms. Everyone else did, but they didn't. That made me suspicious. I read through the glowing reviews and several said, "the bathrooms were small, but it didn't distract from the stay." Bing bing! I choose another hotel. In an ironic twist, I ended up at that hotel at a later date (chosen by a client) and the bathrooms were so small that you literally could not close the door without stepping into the shower!
"And I remember Roger Ebert saying that he had to be careful how he wrote reviews because the studios would pull out individual words to make his negative reviews seem positive."
ReplyDeleteI remember the Terminator 3 trailer mentioned Ebert, who criticized the movie, calling it "wall-to-wall action". A reader sent in a letter and asked Ebert about that, if it bothered him that took words from a negative review to market the movie. This was Ebert's reply:
-----------------------------------
Here is the complete sentence: "'Terminator' is made in the spirit of these slick new action thrillers, and abandons its own tradition to provide wall-to-wall action in what is essentially one long chase and fight, punctuated by comic, campy or simplistic dialogue." You have to admit "wall-to-wall action" does accurately describe the film. So does my closing sentence: "...dumbed down for the multiplex hordes."
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Kit, I remember a panel discussion as several reviewers talked about this. One guy (don't remember who) said that he wrote: "This is not a thrilling movie in any way." And he said a few days later he saw ads in which his name was used with the quote "a thrilling movie!"
ReplyDeleteI always smile when I read the (sometimes) horrible quotes they use on DVD covers. My favorite is from the 2000 animated film Titan A.E.:
ReplyDelete"This is the one Star Wars fans have been waiting for!"
Uh, no. That would be the next Star Wars. (Unless it was a backhanded remark about The Phantom Menace.)
I tend to shop on Amazon quite a bit - Amazon Prime has the same movies as Netflix, with a lot more options and free 2 day shipping on tons of items (no, i'm not a flack - what a trap I set for myself!)
ReplyDeleteI'll look at the product reveiws and go straight to the "1 Star". I read a few and it becomes pretty clear who is sincere, who are trolls and who is just plain stupid. I'll read a several 4 and 3 stars as well. It's pretty easy to see who is legit and who is a schill I think.
djskit -
ReplyDeleteThe thing that kills me is that people will rate a product 1 star because of shipping issues, which have nothing to do with the product itself.
And when it comes to movies, they tend to roll all the reviews for a single movie into one, regardless of the format. So if a movie is released on DVD in bad quality, then released on Blu-Ray with excellent quality, reviews for BOTH will appear, even though only one applies.
djskit - I also shop quite a bit on Amazon. Typically I am looking for books that I already know I want or movies or t.v. shows. I don't look for reviews of the movies or shows as much as I am looking for comments that tell me if the transfer sucked, or it excludes scenes, or won't play on U.S. universal players, etc. A great example .... I wouldn't mind picking up DVD's of the two seasons of Zorro with Guy Williams. What I learned was how badly Disney jerks people around; e.g. they issued "colorized versions" saying that was the only version that would ever be released, then re-issuing vault series with much better packaging, extras, etc. In either case, they were limited editions so the only way you get get it now is to pay $200 plus. I have no love for the modern Disney company. Walt would be apalled.
ReplyDeletedjskit - I do the same thing. I read the bad reviews first and then read enough of the other reviews to get a sense of the product. Then I hit Consumer Reports if it's something they would review.
ReplyDeleteRestaurant reviews are where the worst faux review offenders exist. Either that or people are just too persnickety.
And theatre reviews. I learned very early in my life, that if a theatre critic hated the show I would probably love it.
I don't have much to add but I also go through multiple reviews but focus on the more middle reviews. I do this mostly with electronics, traveling, and large purchases (car). I tend to take a long time to make a big purchase and try to get info from different places. I recently purchased a camera. I read online reviews from Amazon and CNET and a couple others. I then actually bought the camera at Costco primarily because they have one of the best return policies. Don't like it take it back. So far I really like it. I definitely never trust an all love or all hate review.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find interesting is all of the fakes become background noise and I think most people ignore it. I believe that what ever benefit there was from doing this has dried up.
You may have seen this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Story-about-Ping-Marjorie-Flack/dp/0448421658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403203689&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Story+of+Ping
The top rated review for the Story of Ping for over ten years. Just to reinforce Andrew's point that a lot of reviews are ... false, although this is my favorite review.
Wulf, There use to be this hilarious review of the Michigan State Code which treated it like a work of fiction. Line after line was hilarious as it talks about the lack of plot, how the characters suddenly change without warning, etc. It was very poetic too.
ReplyDeleteKoshcat, I hope you're right.
ReplyDelete