Simply put: why on earth do so many people post clearly redundant product reviews on Amazon? Looking at The Fellowship of the Ring DVD, I note that there are 3,509 reviews! Three and a half freakin’ thousand reviews! How much text is that? Was anyone after the first 500 reviews actually adding anything new? Did the 3,509th guy to post a review actaully READ all of the prior reviews to make sure he wasn’t just repeating what someone else has already said? What compels people to continue to post so long after the signal to noise ratio has shrunk to such alarming level?
Because they have something to say. And really, what’s the harm?
I wonder that too. But, think of how many ‘me too’-ish posts end up here, and Amazon.com has a much larger traffic volume.
People just like to be heard, I guess.
I never understood the whole amazon.com reviewing phenomenon in total. Basically, people only tend to write a rewiew on an item if they loved it or hated it, so there’s usually a complete polarity in the reviews which makes the system almost worthless, IMO.
Uh, yeah. Me too. I never understood posting posts to simply repeat what everyone else said, which makes you come off as if you didn’t read any of the posts before yours.
Review of Jadis’s post by Eonwe:
I loved it. Concise, to the point, and insightful. It’s on my top ten list! 9.4
Also wasn’t there a recent flap about publishing companies hiring people to write raving reviews about their own books? Yeah Amazon reviews are worthless yet those links to similar items people bought are a real goldmine.
The thing I find odd is when one reviewer feels the need to respond directly to another reviewer. Post your review, don’t worry about the other’s opinions.
Review of Eonwe’s post by Jadis:
Hated it. Awful, terrible piece of tripe. 0.6
(Amazon average user review: 5.0)