Getting freaky with Amazon reviewers

Reputations are hard to build and easy to lose, which explains why Amazon reviewers do not take kindly to criticism, but are Amazon too quick to remove negative votes and comments after the ‘victims’ complain? Stephen J Dubner investigates in this excellent Freakonomics blog article.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/more-amazon-shenanigans/.

Stephen’s conclusions seem pretty clearcut, but a read through the comments muddies the water somewhat. It’s a fantastic insight into the the complex interplay between incentives and ethics in social media.

Brought into the world on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 and filed under Uncategorized.