Book "reviews" on Amazon U.S.

[edwest2]

At school, we were taught to write book reviews. Today, I am reporting on the dreadful state of reviews for non-fiction military history on Amazon. I had occasion to look over reviews of several books I own and a few I've considered buying. Of course, I tend to read reviews from those who have a little knowledge of the subject matter aside from the book in question. Over the years, the quality of these reviews has gone decidedly downhill. They more resemble blog posts or random thoughts. I doubt the reviewers actually speak this way. The latest trend, so to speak, is to rate the book but provide no actual review. I have decided to simply buy a book and avoid posting a review.

Best,
Ed

[Jukka Juutinen]

Ed, great many reviews there are useless. On many occasions the "review" actually discusses the seller. On many other occasions it is clear that the reviewer knows very little about the subject. One reviewer noted how an aircraft book was difficult to read because it had terms like "aileron".

What is more, reviews cannot be commented any more. On several occasions in the past there were most interesting debates in the commentaries.

[edwest2]

Jukka,

One thing Amazon did was to delete replies to reviews. I had posted a book review that got a reply from one of the authors. Later, that reply disappeared. Today, text and video is stored "in the cloud." As I understand it, these are server farms that rent out storage space to large companies. I think Amazon just decided to cut costs.

Yes, reviews range from useless, and filled with speculative comments, to somewhat useful. Aside from the book description, I sometimes look for more information elsewhere. As it stands, living in the "future" has become a lot like the past. I see the description, buy the book, the end.

Ed

[NickM]

Originally Posted by edwest2

Jukka,

One thing Amazon did was to delete replies to reviews. I had posted a book review that got a reply from one of the authors. Later, that reply disappeared. Today, text and video is stored "in the cloud." As I understand it, these are server farms that rent out storage space to large companies. I think Amazon just decided to cut costs.

Yes, reviews range from useless, and filled with speculative comments, to somewhat useful. Aside from the book description, I sometimes look for more information elsewhere. As it stands, living in the "future" has become a lot like the past. I see the description, buy the book, the end.

Ed

Ed, I used to enjoy the responses to reviews in Amazon; sometimes I found them very helpful==or at least entertaining. The 'disappearance' of the reply feature really annoyed me.