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I actually know people whose job it is to write these things, and to create and maintain sock puppet personas on forums for the purpose of subtly promoting clie

I actually know people whose job it is to write these things, and to create and maintain sock puppet personas on forums for the purpose of subtly promoting clients' products and disparaging those of competitors. Then there are the professional reviews, which are all conflicted because most reviewers either get to keep the gear or the gear maker is a sponsor of the site/publication and the reviewer knows it. I say this as a person who's still involved in publishing reviews (of outdoor gear, mostly), and who most of the time gets to keep whatever some company sends me. However rotten you think the adtech industry is, the state of product reviews online -- user generated, casual forum reviews, professional reviews, etc. -- is worse. I have a standard rant about the current state of the web that I give all my family and friends, and it always ends with: "if you didn't pay to read it, you probably read an advertisement."

souljaswag 10y ago
Indeed. I often get paid to write these types of reviews informally.
logicallee 10y ago
>if you didn't pay to read it, you probably read an advertisement. But your own comment (that I'm replying to) isn't one, and we're not paying for it - you're speaking to us frankly and off the cuff (and if anything, against your own interests on those other sites) because of the informal club-like forum that this is. In the end I and any other readers here are giving you all due weight. in exchange everyone else speaks frankly about stuff they know about. You can read stuff here that probably posters are explicitly prohibited by their employers from posting. some guy from (insert whatever state agency here) can probably post from a throwaway but still waaaaaaaaaaay in contravention of whatever their policies are, and with only a little bit of indirection. So it's hardly as simple as you suggest. yeah you have to read through the bullshit, but this has always been true everywhere. caveat emptor.
- powellzer 10y ago
  Or jonstokes works for a paid, members-only site that provides owner-verified reviews, making his post a subtle advertisement.
  - jonstokes 10y ago
    That's not a bad business idea :)
- jonstokes 10y ago
  That's why I qualify with "probably". Also, it's sort of a deliberate overstatement intended to encourage the hearer to err on the side of caution.
CM30 10y ago
And if you think normal product reviews are in a bad state... well, then there are web hosting reviews. In that industry, pretty much 100% of the recommendations are driven entirely by 'whose affiliate scheme brings the most money'. Or even worse, they're like a mafia protection racket; pay the money and we'll take down bad reviews, don't pay and we'll take down the good ones and leave only the bad ones instead. Parts of that industry make the Amazon system look entirely respectable by comparison. Then there's the state of video game reviews, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Double so when mobile apps are involved.
- wineisfine 10y ago
  True. The worst are VPN reviews though. Thats a total other league of amateur companies actually to be reviewed. Hosting companies, well its more clear who are the big players and such. vPN is a shady world - who knows who is really logging what - etc.
  - jrockway 10y ago
    That's why you create a mesh route of various VPN providers. VPN provider 1 knows that you are using it to talk to other VPNs. VPN provider 2 knows that some VPN customer at VPN provider 1 is talking to website X. All the red tape and technical debt should prevent any major problems, if you know what I mean. I personally just use Usenet for whatever people use VPNs for, I think. If I were doing something that needed to be kept from the NSA, I guess I would use Tor. Or postcards covertly hidden under rocks in public parks or whatever ;)
- mmanfrin 10y ago
  My favorites are reviews on the manufacturers own site. Oh wow! 480 5-star ratings out of 487?!
  - foota 10y ago
    Look at that, the most expensive one is best rated!
  - 10y ago
jonaf 10y ago
The FTC requires disclosure for reviews that were written by individuals who were given a product for the purpose of reviewing it. It is considered anticompetitive and illegal to forego disclosing this about a review. As an engineer at perhaps the largest ratings and reviews company worldwide, I would love to hear your standard rant in long form. Please pm me if you feel up to that conversation. Ideally the result would be an improvement in the quality of the content of billions of reviews.
- notduncansmith 10y ago
  If you guys don't mind a third person in that conversation, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this issue lately and it would be enlightening to hear from others who have probably been thinking about it for much longer :) My email is my profile and I always reply. Also located in SF if anyone wants to discuss over food/drinks.
  - jonaf 10y ago
    Always interested in more folks joining this conversation. It's what I do full time. I think my contact info is in my profile. I'm located in Austin so I'd have to fly out for drinks. ;)
- Pxtl 10y ago
  Do those regulations have any teeth? Because it seems like it would be very hard to enforce.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - jonaf 10y ago
    If the FTC contacts you directly, expect your corporate lawyers to ask you to prioritize resolution over pretty much anything else.
  - gnicholas 10y ago
    You can file many kinds of complaints on the FTC website, but AFAIK, this is not one of them. It's a shame—I've encountered several websites, both as a consumer and as a startup founder, of pay-for-play reviews. Hopefully they'll create a category so that people can file complaints about this.
crapolasplatter 10y ago
A system that has worked for me is: 1. Foremost Does the product meet my need? 2. I ONLY take the negative reviews seriously and look for commonality between them. If I can live with those issues than I purchase the product. 3. I'm also cautious of products where users appear a bit over zealous to correct bad reviews.
- narrowrail 10y ago
  This is close to my strategy, but I mostly read reviews of 2-stars, 3-stars, 4-stars. I sort by usefulness, and read about 10 of each star-rating by usefulness, then recency. I've been thinking about packaging that 'workflow' into a browser extension, but I'm not sure how often Amazon changes the structure of their review content.
  - nathancahill 10y ago
    > I'm not sure how often Amazon changes the structure of their review content. All the time, I think they do a decent amount of A/B testing on product pages (which would make sense). I looked into scraping reviews and doing some analysis for this exact reason.
- rdancer 10y ago
  Loads of products have fake bad reviews now, left by competition. The next logical step is fake corrections, and fake silly reviews on own product. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future every product has a 4.75 star average, and the shills instead of bad reviews start writing fake-sounding good ones.
fredley 10y ago
And what are you advertising?

souljaswag 10y ago

Indeed. I often get paid to write these types of reviews informally.

logicallee 10y ago

>if you didn't pay to read it, you probably read an advertisement. But your own comment (that I'm replying to) isn't one, and we're not paying for it - you're speaking to us frankly and off the cuff (and if anything, against your own interests on those other sites) because of the informal club-like forum that this is. In the end I and any other readers here are giving you all due weight. in exchange everyone else speaks frankly about stuff they know about. You can read stuff here that probably posters are explicitly prohibited by their employers from posting. some guy from (insert whatever state agency here) can probably post from a throwaway but still waaaaaaaaaaay in contravention of whatever their policies are, and with only a little bit of indirection. So it's hardly as simple as you suggest. yeah you have to read through the bullshit, but this has always been true everywhere. caveat emptor.

powellzer 10y ago
Or jonstokes works for a paid, members-only site that provides owner-verified reviews, making his post a subtle advertisement.
- jonstokes 10y ago
  That's not a bad business idea :)
jonstokes 10y ago
That's why I qualify with "probably". Also, it's sort of a deliberate overstatement intended to encourage the hearer to err on the side of caution.

CM30 10y ago

And if you think normal product reviews are in a bad state... well, then there are web hosting reviews. In that industry, pretty much 100% of the recommendations are driven entirely by 'whose affiliate scheme brings the most money'. Or even worse, they're like a mafia protection racket; pay the money and we'll take down bad reviews, don't pay and we'll take down the good ones and leave only the bad ones instead. Parts of that industry make the Amazon system look entirely respectable by comparison. Then there's the state of video game reviews, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. Double so when mobile apps are involved.

wineisfine 10y ago
True. The worst are VPN reviews though. Thats a total other league of amateur companies actually to be reviewed. Hosting companies, well its more clear who are the big players and such. vPN is a shady world - who knows who is really logging what - etc.
- jrockway 10y ago
  That's why you create a mesh route of various VPN providers. VPN provider 1 knows that you are using it to talk to other VPNs. VPN provider 2 knows that some VPN customer at VPN provider 1 is talking to website X. All the red tape and technical debt should prevent any major problems, if you know what I mean. I personally just use Usenet for whatever people use VPNs for, I think. If I were doing something that needed to be kept from the NSA, I guess I would use Tor. Or postcards covertly hidden under rocks in public parks or whatever ;)
mmanfrin 10y ago
My favorites are reviews on the manufacturers own site. Oh wow! 480 5-star ratings out of 487?!
- foota 10y ago
  Look at that, the most expensive one is best rated!
- 10y ago

jonaf 10y ago

The FTC requires disclosure for reviews that were written by individuals who were given a product for the purpose of reviewing it. It is considered anticompetitive and illegal to forego disclosing this about a review. As an engineer at perhaps the largest ratings and reviews company worldwide, I would love to hear your standard rant in long form. Please pm me if you feel up to that conversation. Ideally the result would be an improvement in the quality of the content of billions of reviews.

notduncansmith 10y ago
If you guys don't mind a third person in that conversation, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this issue lately and it would be enlightening to hear from others who have probably been thinking about it for much longer :) My email is my profile and I always reply. Also located in SF if anyone wants to discuss over food/drinks.
- jonaf 10y ago
  Always interested in more folks joining this conversation. It's what I do full time. I think my contact info is in my profile. I'm located in Austin so I'd have to fly out for drinks. ;)
Pxtl 10y ago
Do those regulations have any teeth? Because it seems like it would be very hard to enforce.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jonaf 10y ago
  If the FTC contacts you directly, expect your corporate lawyers to ask you to prioritize resolution over pretty much anything else.
- gnicholas 10y ago
  You can file many kinds of complaints on the FTC website, but AFAIK, this is not one of them. It's a shame—I've encountered several websites, both as a consumer and as a startup founder, of pay-for-play reviews. Hopefully they'll create a category so that people can file complaints about this.

crapolasplatter 10y ago

A system that has worked for me is: 1. Foremost Does the product meet my need? 2. I ONLY take the negative reviews seriously and look for commonality between them. If I can live with those issues than I purchase the product. 3. I'm also cautious of products where users appear a bit over zealous to correct bad reviews.

narrowrail 10y ago
This is close to my strategy, but I mostly read reviews of 2-stars, 3-stars, 4-stars. I sort by usefulness, and read about 10 of each star-rating by usefulness, then recency. I've been thinking about packaging that 'workflow' into a browser extension, but I'm not sure how often Amazon changes the structure of their review content.
- nathancahill 10y ago
  > I'm not sure how often Amazon changes the structure of their review content. All the time, I think they do a decent amount of A/B testing on product pages (which would make sense). I looked into scraping reviews and doing some analysis for this exact reason.
rdancer 10y ago
Loads of products have fake bad reviews now, left by competition. The next logical step is fake corrections, and fake silly reviews on own product. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future every product has a 4.75 star average, and the shills instead of bad reviews start writing fake-sounding good ones.

fredley 10y ago

And what are you advertising?