Me, going on about the evils of the internet again…
A big scandal’s kicked off in the world of books: big-name authors RJ Ellory and Stephen Leather have been writing fake reviews on the internet, bigging up their own titles and damning their rivals’ books.
They’re not the only ones – John Locke appears to have forgotten to mention “paying for hundreds of fake reviews” in his “how I sold lots of ebooks” guide – and if you think it only happens with books I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.
Online reviews are utterly broken.
Comments
0 responses to “Why you can’t trust user reviews: sock puppets don’t just review books”
I can see the attraction of writing fake reviews. You get to take pride in completing a widely read work of fiction and, unlike my novel, it takes less than twenty years to finish.
Haha, true :)
More on the same thing from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/sep/04/online-reviews-rant-in-restaurant
“Earlier this year, TripAdvisor started letting people give star ratings to restaurants without even creating a profile. What was to stop restaurant owners from awarding themselves five stars every time they got to a new computer, while trashing their rivals at the same time?”
On a related note, I sometimes wonder whether the more breathless Apple supporters (or Microsoft, or Google, or…) happen to own shares in Apple (or Microsoft, or Google, or…).