The case of the disappearing Amazon reviews
Dreaming in Code has sold particularly well on Amazon.com, which does not surprise me. Given the subject matter, the book was bound to appeal to buyers who shop online, and Amazon is the dominant player in the online bookstore market.
I’ve also been pleased to see the profusion of customer reviews on Amazon. As of about three weeks ago, we had 33 reviews posted. Most were positive, a handful were negative; either way, each one meant that some reader cared enough to take the time to post their reactions, and that meant a lot to me.
Then something weird happened about ten days ago. Suddenly, Amazon showed only 10 reviews. Two dozen reviews posted between mid-February and the end of June had simply disappeared. In the time since then, a couple of new reviews have joined the total, but the missing reviews have not reappeared.
I’ve been building Web sites long enough, and worked with software long enough, to imagine a variety of different scenarios for what might be causing this. Whatever happened, this is something that Amazon ought to be concerned about — these glitches are rarely limited to a single page; there’s likely sporadic data loss in multiple places. Amazon runs a gigantic Web service that a lot of people depend on. It has even recently gotten into the business of offering back-end data storage services (Amazon S3) to other Web companies and individuals. So I trust they’ll be pursuing this issue. They ought to have this data somewhere from which it can be restored.
I’ve asked my publisher to look into the matter. I also contacted Amazon through their bottom-of-the-page feedback mechanism. The good news is, I actually got a response; the bad news is, it was feeble — I think the customer-service rep. simply looked up the page, saw there were a dozen reviews, and reported such back to me. I could do that from the comfort of my home, thank you!
Amazon was one of the very first businesses to understand the value of what the Net industry now calls “user-generated content.” Customer reviews are the heart of its operation. The most basic compact between a Web service and its users is, “If you contribute something of value, we promise not to lose it.”
UPDATE Mid-afternoon Wednesday: The reviews appear to be back. Thanks, Amazon.
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July 10th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
John Robb noted the same thing a couple of days ago…
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/2007/07/hmmm.html
– Frank
July 11th, 2007 at 5:23 am
I found that a review of my book on amazon.com had disappeared this morning. Actually I was quite pleased because it was a negative review! But as you say, it’s good to have reviews, whether they’re positive or negative.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:18 am
Precisely the same thing happened to me on the exact same day - - maybe it was just a database screwup on their part, because all the reviews miraculously appeared again within 24 hours. I got a boilerplate apology from them about it since I wrote in when I saw almost all the reviews were gone.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:30 am
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July 11th, 2007 at 7:50 am
[...] to think that their review might go missing, then they’re less likely to bother writing it. ::Link Technorati Tags: Web Related Posts Confirmed: Amazon will launch DRM-Free music storePriceheat : [...]
July 11th, 2007 at 8:19 am
You would think they would want all that UGC on their site for SEO and testimonials
July 11th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Did the bulk of your negative reviews disappear with the purge? I’ve had reasonable and informed critical reviews deleted and have seen others deleted as well — for many books. A classic case was with ‘A Million Little Pieces,’ which received a large number of negative reviews after it was revealed the author made a lot of this memoir up. However, almost as soon as the negative reviews started coming in, Amazon started deleting them. I love their review system, but find it a lot harder to trust anymore.
July 11th, 2007 at 8:50 am
No, this didn’t seem to be based on culling the negatives. It’s date-based, which is why it smells like a database issue of some kind to me. But who knows? I’m glad your reviews reappeared, Tim — hoping mine will too!
July 11th, 2007 at 9:52 am
This also happened to me. I wrote an extremely funny, yet extremely scathing review for Stephen Kings “The Dark Tower VII” book. It generated something like 50 helpful votes over about a year, then was removed. I figured it was censorship at the time, but based on your story, maybe Amazon just has software problems?
July 11th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Censorship disguised as a database error. Perhaps they’re just running out of space, and have a new policy of deleting reviews that don’t reach a certain amount of votes in a certain time?
July 11th, 2007 at 11:17 am
It seems to me that it may be related to Amazon’s new policy of reviews. They won’t allow anyone to publish a review that hasn’t made a purchase with the account they’re logged in with. That way, they’re trying to cull out reviews from trolls and the like.
I may have evidence refuting my own point, though, because the reviews for “Blue Moon Rising” by Simon Green are overwhelmingly positive, but the book itself is complete rubbish. If it weren’t for having read his other work earlier, I would have dismissed him as a hack.
Seriously. Don’t read “Blue Moon Rising.” It’s crap.
July 11th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
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November 14th, 2007 at 6:40 am
Hi Scott - A few days ago all 13 customer reviews of my book, THE SECRET OF THE SECRET disappeared. I have asked Amazon twice about this, and even left a “review” pointing out that the reviews were gone. I have yet to hear an answer. I think there is a story here. It’s bizarre, but somehow I feel better knowing it has happened to other people. I am glad you got all your reviews back, and I hope mine some back as well!