Recommendable

I really like the discussion in last week’s lecture about the system of recommendations on many websites nowadays, and the inherent hierarchy that it creates.

This system of recommendations offers remarkable opportunities online, but they also come with many problems, and are easily manipulated by businesses and advertisers. They can be extremely useful; advertisements is slightly more bearable when it actually relates to you, and shopping and browsing online for music and such is much more productive and rewarding when we are given a head-start through user recommendations and tools such as ‘people also bought’

However, there have been numerous examples of these systems becoming corrupted by businesses or due to the companies striving to make a profit. Time posted an article about this a few days ago, and listed data that supported how important online reviews by ‘users’ are. According to a 2013 survey, 9/10 customers said their buying decisions have been influenced by online reviews, while a study by Harvard Business School stated that just a one star increase in a review for a business corresponded to a revenue increase of 5-9%. Online reviews and user recommendations are so important today to how well a business or piece of media does, so much weight is placed on how a movie rates on IMDb, or how a book is recommended on Amazon and the likes, and this is much more important than reviews by experts in newspapers or magazines.

Yelp is a giant in the online review business, and is hugely profitable. The site allows users to rate businesses, but this system has been met with much criticism and controversy. It has been alleged that Yelp has filtered reviews based on whether the business in question has paid for advertising on the site or not, and that it has offered to remove derogatory reviews if advertising is bought. This is essentially blackmailing businesses into paying the site, and is a violation of the trust people now place on these review websites. This system has resulted in at least one class-action against Yelp, and is a clear example of how this hierarchy of recommendation can be manipulated to the detriment of the user.

Angie’s List is another website that has allegedly hijacked this review system. It is a site that only allows its two million paying subscribers to see and write the reviews, and has supposedly allowed businesses with a ‘B’ rating or better to pay to get their listing placed at the top of the search results. This creates a fake recommendations system that is misleading and lying the readers, with the aims of generating profit.

This system has also been abused by the businesses and creators of content that is being reviewed, with many being revealed to have reviewed their own or rivals content anonymously online, taking advantage of the fact that it is easy to anonymously post defamatory things online.

An author named R.J. Ellory was caught posting positive reviews of his own book on Amazon, as well as very negative ones on his rivals. Ellory perhaps naively made very little effort to actually hid it, sometimes signing off with his name or email address, but he has been met with a huge backlash for hijacking a system like this.

As soon as people lose trust in a recommendations system, it is useless. The whole idea of this hierarchy of recommendations is for unbiased, ‘normal’ people’s opinions to be heard and for these to influence and help other people, not for businesses and writers to manipulate it.
This is like comparing a ‘promoted’ tweet that appears at the top of your timeline with something that has been retweeted by someone you follow. One is something that is paid for and not necessarily relating to your interests, while the other is something that has been recommended to you by someone you have already stated you are interested in.

This system of recommendations has the real potential to be effective and worthwhile, but only if it can prevent business and companies taking advantage of it.

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