Amazon’s review system is broken
Like many others, after watching last night’s “60 Minutes,” I was excited to order Michael Lewis’s new book on the financial crisis: “The Big Short.” When I went on Amazon today to place order, however, I was bummed to find that it had received an average of 2 1/2 stars. Is the book really that bad?
Well, no. Lots of people are going on the website to give the book a one-star review because it isn’t available for Kindle. Now, this bums me out. The Amazon reviews are among the most helpful pieces of information for me when buying a product. Reading Amazon reviews often makes up about 95% of the product research I conduct before making purchase decisions. If the Amazon review system is going to be invaded by hordes of Kindle-wielding rabblerousers, it will become far less helpful to me.
At the same time, I can see why Amazon doesn’t want to prevent people from writing reviews simply because they haven’t purchased the book. I see that Amazon recently launched a “verified review” system to prove that a reviewer did, in fact, buy the book from Amazon (and aren’t just an angry Kindle owner looking for blood). It probably makes sense for Amazon to publish a separate review area for the “verified reviews,” so I don’t have to waste my time wading through the one-star “why isn’t this on Kindle” crap. But it’s a tough call.
I guess when everyone gets an iPad in a few months, they won’t need books on Kindles anyway, right?
PS: The publisher won: I bought the dang book in hardcover.
