

Sure, Post a Review. But the Last Word Won’t Be Yours.  - yarapavan
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/your-money/on-a-review-site-car-carriers-get-the-last-word-haggler.html?ref=technology

======
ramanujan

      Which brings the Haggler to his latest million-dollar 
      idea: a review site that reviews the review sites. It’s 
      genius! Grade them all on trustworthiness, candor and so 
      on. 
    

That's a great idea. Let's start with the New York Times. How did the NYT's
Judith Miller do during Iraq? How about Jayson Blair for that matter? And
let's not forget Walter Duranty.

<http://www.nytco.com/company/awards/statement.html>

    
    
      New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded 
      to Walter Duranty
    
      Duranty, one of the most famous correspondents of his day, 
      won the prize for 13 articles written in 1931 analyzing 
      the Soviet Union under Stalin. Times correspondents and 
      others have since largely discredited his coverage.
    
      Describing the Communist plan to "liquidate" the five 
      million kulaks, relatively well-off farmers opposed to the 
      Soviet collectivization of agriculture, Duranty wrote in 
      1931, for example: "Must all of them and their families be 
      physically abolished? Of course not - they must be 
      'liquidated' or melted in the hot fire of exile and labor 
      into the proletarian mass."
    
      Taking Soviet propaganda at face value this way was 
      completely misleading, as talking with ordinary Russians 
      might have revealed even at the time....Some of Duranty's 
      editors criticized his reporting as tendentious, but The 
      Times kept him as a correspondent until 1941.
    

Point: all reviewers are biased. We cannot count on the New York Times to
remind us in every story that it's a corporation with its own conflicts of
interests. But it is.

~~~
logjam
What? Please explain how your "point" is something other than _tu qoque_ [1],
i.e., exactly how Judith Miller's bullshit on Iraq and someone who wrote for
the Times 80 years ago possibly relate to this consumer piece.

In your focus on "the Times", rather than on the writing expressed in this
specific consumer affairs piece, what factors exactly are you imagining that
supposedly swayed the writer of this consumer affairs piece and what evidence
do you have for it?

"All reviewers are biased." Maybe you could quantify the level of bias for us,
for the following:

1) married couple who had a horrible experience with a moving company, and
reviewed it online.

2) the horrible moving company in reviewing that feedback from the married
couple.

3) web site who took money from the horrible moving company and subsequently
minimized the married couple's review of the horrible moving company.

Are you really trying to suggest that there are equivalent "biases" at work
here?

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque>

~~~
ramanujan
Well, it's not just tu quoque. Relatively few people know that the NYT charges
you for reprints when your company appears in a story:

    
    
      http://www.nytreprints.com/services/reprints/
    
      Professional custom article reprints feature high-quality 
      replications of original editorial coverage featuring your 
      company, product, service or industry. They may also be a 
      topical or feature support for your promotion. PARS’ 
      expert graphics team consults with you on design and 
      customization that best meets your marketing goals as well 
      as the guidelines set forth by the publishers.
    

This starts to look a lot like the practice David Segal is criticizing. I
couldn't find breakouts of this line item in their financials, but wouldn't be
surprised if this is a nice slice.

Basically, if you're familiar with the news business, there are a host of
things that are done that would shock your average news reader. For example, I
await the first website that does a proper social networking analysis of each
article to determine the relationship of all people in the piece to the
reporter. Reporters know enough to (usually) avoid direct financial
relationships, but it is amazing how many have a cozy backscratching
relationship with their subjects. A friend, a fellow alum, a friend-of-a-
friend, a leaker who wants to advance their own career by taking down an
internal rival, a go-to quote machine who will say whatever the reporter wants
them to say...these are the staples of the news biz.

Unfortunately, it's not exactly about disinterested probity.

------
delinka
Until the general public is willing to get past "Free" and pay for some things
like a review site or an article from a blog, the companies paying the bills
will be the ones deciding what kind of service the public gets.

Even if you get micropayments figured out, and people start clicking the litte
$$/££ button on your site, how do you motivate someone to leave positive
reviews? It's similar to being in IT, or in the tech side of stage production:
if you're doing your job correctly, no one notices and they're unlikely to be
motivated to comment positively.

The only method that comes to mind that solves this kind of problem is an
escrow company. You hire for services via the escrow, pay them for service,
they withhold payment until you are satisfied or until you don't reply, and
once payment is delivered, you can no longer leave negative feedback. Written
contracts managed by the escrow party would also be a must.

------
JadeNB
delinka (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3282503> )'s response is the
first one that comes to mind: if you need to monetise your review business,
and if people are (rightfully) suspicious about your company accepting money
from the companies that it reviews, then why not ask for money from the
reviewers?

Of course, the obvious answer is "They won't pay"; so why not ask for money
from the _consumers_ of the reviews? OK, it's still pretty idealistic, and
people will still go for free, but imagine a whole gamified review platform:
to _read_ reviews, you need to spend credits. To earn credits, you can either
spend a small amount of money, or leave reviews yourself. This offers an
incentive to leave positive reviews—it gives you access to more of others'
reviews. Of course, the big problem with positive reviews is that people
usually can't even _think_ of their positive experiences; so prompt for a
small amount of personal information: "Where do you live? … OK, people in
Chicago are looking for reviews of Thai restaurants. Have you been to a Thai
restaurant lately?", &c.

Your review will be decorated with an Amazon-style "This review was helpful"
thumbs up / thumbs down button; and, the more helpful reviews you leave, the
more weight your later reviews will be given. (The main problem that I have
with review sites is companies posting spurious reviews of their own
products.) Have comments be the last word, or allow threaded discussions
(without moderation, or with moderation only for content violations); I'm
perfectly happy with allowing businesses to respond—there are definitely
unreasonable companies out there—as long as the _whole_ exchange is out in the
open.

Sure, the revenue stream from people willing to pay to read reviews is fairly
small, but, if you build up a trustworthy review site, then surely people will
come to it in preference to the current crop of useless ones out there, and
the ad impressions will start to mean something.

~~~
blahedo
I would totally use that site, but are you thinking micropayments or
subscription?

~~~
JadeNB
Since review-reading is usually a one-off thing—I've never found myself
thinking, “I'm going to need to read lots of reviews this month”—it's hard to
imagine much of a market for subscriptions; so I guess micropayments.

------
rsheridan6
If I were looking for a car transporter, I'd ask around at a forum for car
enthusiasts, like this one: [http://forums.aaca.org/f196/i-want-my-car-
transported-help-2...](http://forums.aaca.org/f196/i-want-my-car-transported-
help-278239.html)

If you find a guy who has 1000 non-shill posts at a forum, chances are his
recommendation for some service provider isn't a shill either.

~~~
ceol
I agree. I don't think I would ever enter a generic search term in to Google
and trust the first thing that pops up with hundreds of dollars of my money.

Not to say this is the customer's fault. Just saying people place too much
trust into the first result.

------
matdwyer
Reviews are a huge part of my business, and the third party recommendation
site (GigPark) that we use doesn't allow us to edit, delete, or respond to
comments. I kind of like it like that - it forces us to take care of issues
and make sure the customer doesn't end unhappy. It is risky, but motivating.

------
zdw
If a system can be gamed to prefer one party over another, it will be.

The problem with the internet is that it provides anonymity, which allows
nearly anyone to claim anything, without having to prove it.

You can attempt to chip away at this by creating reputation systems, doing
outside validation, or charging an entry fee, but even then those systems are
also subject to being gamed.

There are no good solutions to this one, although I'd love to see one that is
self enforcing - where it's in the best interest of all parties to behave in a
way that is honest.

~~~
JadeNB
> You can attempt to chip away at this by creating reputation systems, doing
> outside validation, or charging an entry fee, but even then those systems
> are also subject to being gamed.

> There are no good solutions to this one

I think that saying there is no _perfect_ solution (which is undoubtedly true)
is quite different from saying that there's no _good_ solution; each barrier
in the way of gaming the system makes the reviews slightly more, though never
completely, trustworthy. I know that, in the end, the decision is mine, and I
have a chance of making the wrong one no matter how many reviews I read; but I
would prefer an imperfect review system to a completely busted one.

------
dageroth
One year ago the nyt ran an article describing how one company makes a killing
by angering people into giving bad reviews on such sites:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?pag...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?pagewanted=all)

It's rather maddening to think that by actually providing a warning about some
shady company they are still helped by such review sites. Consequently I don't
write bad reviews, but only recommend either directly or write about very
positive interactions.

------
danso
The first thing I thought of when I read this article was: "Boy, that customer
got off _easy_!"

Anyone remember this story from a couple years back?
[http://consumerist.com/2009/02/direct-express-auto-
transport...](http://consumerist.com/2009/02/direct-express-auto-transport-
responds-to-bad-reviews-by-posting-reviewers-personal-information-onli.html)

It deals with the same transportreviews.com site, but different transport
company. The Consumerist reports: " _We write often about companies' sleazy
approaches to online reviews. Some companies bribe users for positive
feedback. Others sue over negative reviews. Direct Express Auto Transport,
however, is the first company we've seen that responds to bad reviews by
sharing users' personal information._ "

And here is one of the counter-reviews noted:
<http://www.transportreviews.com/review/00031016.asp>

It appears they've since taken out the customer's full name, but their
rebuttal in part:

>Our outstanding record speaks for itself. Customer April would not release
her car to our 1st driver on Dec 29 in Arizona, which inconvenienced him
greatly...Her choice of words in which to express herself should tell you
plenty, which fortunately is now captured on the internet with her full name
and town. Because we ship thousands of cars monthly, it is inevitable that we
encounter individuals such as this.

------
110101001010100
Thoughts of Yelp come to mind. Businesses paying to protect their reputations.
Except we extend this even further.

He envisions "a review site that reviews the review sites".

It appears that's what his employer is doing with his column. He's reviewing a
review site. And as he says, the goal is getting page views. Mission
accomplished.

What does he think he's going to do with financing?

Implement a massive marketing and sales campaign, getting review sites to sign
up to protect their reputations?

If he wants to review review sites, nothing is stopping him from starting a
blog and doing so.

You can write or get users to write absolute rubbish and still get page views.
That seems to be a solid way to attract eyeballs. It continues to work, year
after year.

