Politics and Amazon Reviews

I don't know if you guys are following this or not, but a quick summary.

1. Hugo Chavez gave a book to President Obama about Latin America.
2. Matt Drudge provided a link to the book on Amazon.
3. Those will political views similar to Matt Drudge are bombarding the reviews with "Not Helpful" votes and frantically writing comments to 10-year old reviews.
4. Oh, and of course writing reviews for a book they have not read.

It's always something...

You know, sometimes I am ashamed to be a member of the human race.

Once again

So I'm looking at some music on Amazon and I see a book on a page that catches my attention:

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (Hardcover). Thought I'd read a review or two, just to get a feel for what it covers. Released on November 13, this review hits in less than a week.

Money makes the world go round, November 20, 2008 -- Amada Barry.

Seemed legit enough until I came to this....

"The other book I read this week that I also recommend very strongly is The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book. Let's just say it makes it a little easier for me to watch the market, and in a little better mood around my husband when I come home from work :) "

D---! Isn't Amazon going to do anything about this guy?

I left a comment, replying to someone else who had commented on the ads for the Quick Book. I used to be reluctant to do that, fearing that the person would use his 100 accounts to bash my reviews, but I don't care any more. Not after I spent about 3 or 4 hours on a review that never had a chance to one of the Quick Book ad/"reviews."

I don't understand why Amazon doesn't police for this guy, but as I think about it, perhaps the problem is far, far worse than I know -- and this guy is the least of their problems.

Enter FTC: end of Amazon "reviews" system as we know it?

Turns out what we call shilling has a politically correct, scientific-sounding name: viral marketing. So, Harriet Klausner, Morris, Gunny, W.Boudville, et al. are not shills, they're viral marketeers. OK. There's a curious article in the Financial Times, Advertisers brace for online viral marketing curbs, check it out:

Advertisers in the US are bracing themselves for regulatory changes that they fear will curtail their efforts to tap into the fast-growing online social media phenomenon.

Revised guidelines on endorsements and testimonials by the Federal Trade Commission, now under review and expected to be adopted, would hold companies liable for untruthful statements made by bloggers and users of social networking sites who receive samples of their products.

The guidelines would also hold bloggers liable for the statements they make about products.

If a blogger received a free sample of skin lotion and then incorrectly claimed the product cured eczema, the FTC could sue the company for making false or unsubstantiated statements. The blogger could be sued for making false representations. [...]

Advertisers have significantly increased spending on social media and word-of-mouth campaigns, even during the recession. Through blogs and services such as Facebook and Twitter, companies are able to communicate more directly with consumers. Spending on social media marketing [read: shilling] reached $1.35bn in 2007 and is expected to reach $3.7bn by 2011, according to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

The advertising industry has argued that the revised regulations are too stringent and would stifle innovation in the emerging field of social media. It remains in favour of self-regulation. [yeah right] [...]

“The guides needed to be updated to address not only the changes in technology, but also the consequences of new marketing practices,” said Richard Cleland, assistant director for the FTC’s division of advertising practices. “Word-of-mouth marketing is not exempt from the laws of truthful advertising.” [tell this to Jeff Bezos]

The main target of the new guidelines appears to be the widespread practice of viral marketing in which companies recruit non- employees to talk up products in exchange for samples or promotions. [See our list of Our Friends Top Reviewers below]

Companies regularly offer free samples and concert tickets to bloggers and journalists, in the hope of generating press. However, determining which bloggers are acting as an agent of a company may prove difficult.[no kidding! They "forget" to mention themselves, and how would you know otherwise? LE Cantrell likes to push this point.]

Check it out, a curious article. I hope something comes out of this move by the FTC — it's about a decade overdue.

What happened to Amazon's new ranking system ?

Only the "classic" numbers show up on Amazon anymore. What happened to the new ranking system? "Disappeared" w/o trace?

Lisa Marie Wilkinson is Proud of Herself

One a site called Romantic Times one Lisa Marie Wilkinson writes in her blog:

My debut historical romance novel "Fire at Midnight" was released by Medallion Press on March 1. [...] "Fire at Midnight" was a finalist or winner of more than 40 writing contests in its unpublished form, including the Maryland Writers Association Novel Contest and a Bronze Award from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest.

The novel was recently awarded a 5 star review by Amazon reviewer Harriet Klausner, a 4 star rating by Romantic Times Book Reviews Magazine, and a 5 Blue Ribbon Rating from Romance Junkies.

Shall we laugh or shall we cry ? :-) Well. Congratulations of course, but this review from Harriet Klausner... these Klausner reviews aren't what they used to be anymore!

Punish the Victim, Once More (S.Tepper's Untimely Demise)

Have you noticed that the prolific Amazon poster S.Tepper has apparently been banished and all his comments wiped out ('deleted-by-Amazon')? On Amazon.com, whenever it comes to a shill vs a guy with enough civic spirit to complain about it, it's the guy who will lose.

Another telling nuance is that when such a total-wipeout event happens, all posts marked as 'deleted by Amazon' show different dates, usually the date of original posting of the deleted comment — despite the fact that they have all been deleted in one shot on a date that has nothing to do with the original posting date; in fact it can be years later. Obviously this is incorrect, but let's speculate why Amazon would be doing it this way?

Perhaps to create an impression that every post was deleted individually, upon a human inspection, for something being legitimately wrong with it? Maybe the idea was to hide the fact that a lot of such deletions are a gigantic one-blow event, maybe even faceless, triggered automatically, say, by gangs of shills in cahoots clicking with gleeful abandon on the 'report this' button or something similar? Or by one of them operating a bunch of sock-puppet accounts (once more: setting up a voting account is exceptionally easy (amazing that it is so, no?) — all you need is to type a bit of text (any text: gibberish, anything) into a couple of fields on the login page — you won't be able to comment or review (gotta buy something for that), but you will for some reason be given the right to vote).

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Unrelately — or rather only somewhat on topic: check out this new post about Amazon reviews system: Amazon: Customers Fight Back Over Fake Amazon Reviews.

Harriet in Turbo Mode

The Bernie Madoff of Amazon reviewing -- I'm talking of Harriet Klausner of course -- has posted no less than 108 reviews today (the day's not over yet). No, you haven't misread: it is one hundred and eight. Somewhat redundantly, I'm sure, let me add that it was not after a couple of years' silence that she did this: her previous batch is but a couple of days old.

One of the blurbs is titled suburb romantic fantasy (meaning "superb" I think), which gives extra weight to the theory Mr Fleisig proposed a while ago: that Harriet reviews are really dictated on tape and then sent to be transcribed to the Third World somewhere, where the transcribers make these phonetically plausible intepretation errors. The resulting "reviews" are then posted directly, without human oversight (a spell checker would let the "suburb" through since it's a valid word... well, I mean to say, spell-checker would, if Harriet used it, which it is obvious from her usual style that she doesn't.

Anyway, I think a 108-review batch is something of a rarity: I do remember a 98 one, but going over a hundred is an achievement even for such a great reviewer as Harriet Klausner (who, let me remind the reader, herself claims to read only (ahem) two books a day...