Six degrees of reputation: The use and abuse of online review and recommendation systems

TLDR

The paper proposes a framework to analyze how authorship, creativity, expertise, and reputation are being renegotiated in a multi‑tier reputation economy. The study employed quantitative and qualitative methods and custom software to examine online reputation economies and user practices on major e‑commerce sites, and proposes a framework for analyzing shifts in authorship, creativity, expertise, and reputation. The study found that hundreds of Amazon reviews are copies of one another, highlighting strategies that blur author‑reader boundaries and allow actors to promote agendas while building expert identities.

Abstract

This paper reports initial findings from a study that used quantitative and qualitative research methods and custom–built software to investigate online economies of reputation and user practices in online product reviews at several leading e–commerce sites (primarily Amazon.com). We explore several cases in which book and CD reviews were copied whole or in part from one item to another and show that hundreds of product reviews on Amazon.com might be copies of one another. We further explain the strategies involved in these suspect product reviews, and the ways in which the collapse of the barriers between authors and readers affect the ways in which these information goods are being produced and exchanged. We report on techniques that are employed by authors, artists, editors, and readers to ensure they promote their agendas while they build their identities as experts. We suggest a framework for discussing the changes of the categories of authorship, creativity, expertise, and reputation that are being re–negotiated in this multi–tier reputation economy.