The murky demimonde of Amazon's Top Reviewers. - By Garth Risk Hallberg - Slate Magazine
The internet is a powerful tool in bringing many more points of view to the world. And yet, we need a way to process all these new opinions. Ironic indeed that we actually seem to be in danger of reinforcing our own beliefs because we can fill up our RSS and alerts with things we already believe in, rather than different points of view.
We do need a way to process these too many inputs, if of course we continue to subject ourselves to too many inputs. Taking the plug out is always an option.
But we don't really expect to be played in this arena of users contributing with their reviews, or writing their blogs or recommended a track. I'll be looking out for Grady Harp and others the next time I read a review.
The internet is a powerful tool in bringing many more points of view to the world. And yet, we need a way to process all these new opinions. Ironic indeed that we actually seem to be in danger of reinforcing our own beliefs because we can fill up our RSS and alerts with things we already believe in, rather than different points of view.
We do need a way to process these too many inputs, if of course we continue to subject ourselves to too many inputs. Taking the plug out is always an option.
But we don't really expect to be played in this arena of users contributing with their reviews, or writing their blogs or recommended a track. I'll be looking out for Grady Harp and others the next time I read a review.
Comments