Amazon.com, a pioneer in online retail, created practically an entire cottage industry of people writing reviews of the products sold on their website. Some items such as "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" alone has spawned over 3,000 reviews. What's the point? What compels people to do this? And what's the incentive for companies? These are some of the questions that the Economist tries to answer in their Technology Quarterly issue.
“Single digits didn’t seem to move the needle at all,” says Mr McAteer. “It wasn’t enough to get people comfortable with making that purchase decision.” But after about 20 reviews of a product are posted, “We start to see more reviews—it starts to accelerate,” says Sam Decker, the chief marketing officer of Bazaarvoice, a firm that powers review systems for online retailers.
It's a fascinating read with implications that might be of interest to online marketers and social media aficionados.