Letters to the Editor
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Reviews are worthless
Often as not there's a default setting to give the product or service 5 stars and if you don't pay attention you'll miss that. Tiger Direct and New Egg have that problem - you read a review that says "This xxxx sucks!" 5 stars. Second - most people are nitpicking assholes who trash or love something for some obscure feature you don't care about.
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Was this article helpful to anyone?
How know how it is: you mostly hear about the trains that are late. So while I may from time to time read an article that is not the most fascinating, I won't bother still to moan about it.
But - this one? I guess it's brain flu, just not normal flu. Or it's just a good ole holiday-cheer joke to make us all smile and soldier on through the inclement weather.
Besides the fact that buying tissues online should only be available to the more severely anti-social among us, who also agonizes over the brand? (Who doesn't just use toilet paper within the discreet confines of their hones, as well?)
I do understand the life-threatening consequences of the answers to the "Was having the perfect five-star rating the true measure of customer satisfaction? Or was it more impressive to have a stellar rating that had persevered despite twice as many opportunities for getting bashed?" question - or at least I would understand them better if it weren't the same product to which both applied - yes, it *is* the Kleenex that "persevered" through 15 opinions with its perfect rating. So if the rating is the deciding factor, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to decide the Kleenex has a much better per-review rating.
And it hardly takes a colleague of said von Braun Jr. to gauge that $34.43 per 1,080 tissues probably is not "about one cent per tissue", but more likely three.
I truly hope the whole column was meant as a p***-take on user reviews (which could seriously use one!) Because of all the problems that could be discussed regarding those, rating tissues probably don't, er, rate that high.
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Users mention what sellers omit
As a marketing professional myself, I know that vendors aren't going to point out their product's shortcomings unless legally required to do so (and then it'll be as inconspicuously as possible). User reviews can help fill in the blanks. For example, a kitchen gadget may indeed have dazzling functionality, exactly as advertised -- but from customer reviews you'll learn that it's also really hard to clean after use, plus there's a little plastic part that tends to break easily. A pattern of such reviews can be very helpful in deciding whether or not to purchase an item.
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Not helpful
If I ever needed a reminder of why I dropped my Premium membership, this article serves that purpose admirably.
Is there an option to award no stars?
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Buzz Agents
I was expecting this article to touch some on companies that advertise by hiring buzz agents, who spread the word through loud public conversations, positive online reviews, etc.
From "Ten Disturbing Trends in Subliminal Advertising":
"Positive buzz can be triggered artificially for a price. Marketers now recruit secret 'buzz agents' to promote to their friends and family. One buzz agency claims to have an army of agents in every major US city. Their job is to mention or display certain products as they go about their day, using their relationships as marketing channels. Music labels, book sellers, entertainment venues, and fashion outlets are using this method to establish new brands. Today’s billion dollar 12-16 year olds are so immune to traditional advertising, mass media is no longer a reliable persuasive device - so the alternative is a 'synthetic grapevine.’ "
http://www.mindpowernews.com/SubliminalAds.htm
http://www.bzzagent.com/
That's the real reason I'm wary of ecstatic online reviews of toothbrushes and facial tissue. NO ONE should get that excited about crap like that.
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Please, please, PLEASE...
... tell me that this article doesn't exist.
A review of user reviews? By a self-proclaimed "cultural critic?" Who lives in New York City but apparently has an apartment large enough to store pallets of nasal tissue? And who lives in New York City and can't just go down to the corner bodega to buy a box of nose wipes?!?!?!?!
Words fail me, seriously. You talk about your basic Bread and Circuses. We deserve to be an empire in decline. What a waste of my time (I somehow got sucked in to reading this, and am horribly sorry I did - but the whole enterprise has a "staring at a car wreck" wuality about it), of everyone else's time - of the writer's time! And what a perfect example of how far Americans in general have their heads up their asses. Like this matters.
You want to worry about something? Worry about global warming. Worry about the kids in Bed Stuy who won't have a toy for "the holidays." Worry about the NYC school system. Worry about Darfur.
Sheesh.
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I Usually Just Read the Negative Reviews (but sometimes ignore them...)
I find myself going immedietely to the 1 and 2 star reviews. Generally, I'm looking at a product because I'm already interested in buying it. Therefore, I want to make sure there's not a compelling reason NOT to buy it. So I read the negative reviews first and often don't even bother with positive ones.
BUT....
I also have to remind myself that EVERY product will get some negative reviews and that sometimes people will leave negative reviews for the wrong reasons. For example, someone will one-star a product because Amazon screwed up shipping.
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I found this helpful and....
...entertaining. I don't put a lot of faith in reviews, but I consider them along with other information, such as Consumer Reports, when buying a product. As for toilet paper....after a few months travelling in India, where I found myself in toilets that usually didn't have toilet paper, I found a new appreciation for that lowly product, European or American standard T.P, I wanted it!
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What I find fascinating...
...Among many of the other fascinating topics of psychology on the internet, are the reviews written by people who obviously don't own the product. This is particularly prevalent in the tech and game areas.
Yes, there are paid shills out there; these are not that. I'm talking about people who feel compelled to enthuse about something that they don't actually have any hands-on with. In some cases pre-reviews can be written by beta testers who really did have access to the product pre-release, but in most cases this is somebody opining and, effectively, lying about a product. It's of a piece with fanboyism in a lot of cases, I think. Somebody who's bought the hype and is also seduced by the idea that thousands of people will read their words and be influenced by them.
I've seen at least one site that tags such reviews with "Preview Buzz" to indicate that you should have your salt shaker in hand while reading. I'll bet more such tags follow in the future, from more sites.