NYT On Online Reputations

prostoalex writes "New York Times analyzes the importance of online postings for the company images and product success/failure rates. Intuit's TurboTax DRM "feature" is mentioned as one of the bad ideas, that was quickly and vociferously opposed by the Internet folk. The movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding got quite a nice cash flow even though the advertising budget was low, but opinions on the Internet regarded the movie highly. Rating systems of Epinions and Slashdot are also discussed briefly."

Comments

A modest proposal...

[Noryungi]

For the Slashdot editors, and others:

What about a system that would let you transfer your "karma" or "reputation" from one site to another?

And, specifically for Slashdot: what about a system that would give you precise stats about the state of your karma, such as the number of negative karma moderation?

Just a suggestion...

Reputations of people, specifically teachers

[dylan95]

Thousands of college students use TeacherReviews.com to influence their decision as to which college classes to take. Some professors complain that they don't think it is fair that their reputation is readily available online for anybody to see (especially when their reviews on TeacherReviews.com is often the first thing Google links to), and there are professors that like it so much that they link their syllabus to the site, even when their reviews aren't so great (so that they can gather more good reviews, I suspect).

Re:Reputations of people, specifically teachers

[simong_oz]

I haven't checked out the site, but anyone who chooses their university on the basis of opinions posted on a website deserves everything they get. For something as serious as this ("grading" teachers), the internet is simply too anonymous to be taken on it's merits. For example, who's to say that the teacher/prof themself is not posting opinions? Or somebody with a bone to pick doesn't post lots of bad opinions? What sort of cross-checks are there that the person posting the opinion has ever been taught by that prof? etc etc

It also encourages teachers to teach in the manner that influences their grading (ever see the episode of Malcolm in the Middle where the new teacher institutes a ranking table?), just as exaqms encourage students to memorise what's required to pass a unit rather than learn the material so they know and understand it. But I'll get off my soapbox as I'm starting to go off on a bit of a tangent. :)

And, as is the case with almost every survey that wants opinions, negative opinions will far outweight the positive simply because people rarely bother to comment when the job is well done.

Shaping how movies are made, as well

[Patik]

Ang Lee, director of Hulk, was not going to put the main character in purple shorts until he encountered pressure from fans online. The fans threatened to badmouth and boycott the movie if Lee didn't stick to the comic in that regard, so he switched the outfit back.

Regarding Epinions

[Redking]

They've been around for a while and I think it's great. I still go there to read reviews before I make any purchasing decisions and they also have helpful advice articles written by nominated Experts on different topics like credit card debt or succeeding in college.

Read their history, they've been around since the dotcom boom and are founded by former employees at top technology companies. Unlike other dotcom companies, they've adapted and survived by making tough but sound financial decisions. When I first signed up, each review was awarded 30 cents per view by an Epinions registered visitor, but then people began abusing it. Slowly they've adjusted and lowered the payment rate and have implemented a new reward system.

I'm not surprised that companies are starting to quote Epinions' users regarding their products. They have a well established "Web of Trust" system and top reviewers are entrusted by the general Epinions' public to give objective reviews. Check it out!

Remember E-Mail

[Nice2Cats]

Gagging online sites isn't going to help, because more information is passed on by e-mail than anything else. I have about four friends with whom I regularly mail about new films and DVD releases and what to avoid: Tripple X was one of the films I seem to have saved them from. Unfortunately, they were too late to stop me from going to see 28 Days Later, because I didn't read my e-mail that day. It doesn't have to be negative: I've been recommending Hero left and right. Fight Club was a film I only rented an e-mail discussion.

Another area where e-mail is a killer are computer games: I don't know how many people I have told not to buy Master of Orion III because it is simply a piece of crap that should have been taken out to the back lot of Infogrames (now Atari, I believe) and shot.

Word of mouth is powerful, even if you don't stand on a soap box.

They sure let Intuit off the hook easy...

[weave]

Sucky article mention of intuit....

1. Intuit installs crappy copy protection
2. Users bitch. A small number of paranoid ones claim Intuit is spying on them
3. Intuit quickly handles situation and assures everyone it's not spying on them.
4. Everyone is happy

Not how I remember it. No mention of the scribbling crap into your boot block or inability to install into vmware machines, etc, etc...

I switched to Tax Cut.

Re:NYT On Online Reputations?

[alister667]

Does anyone rememeber the poor clod who had his reputation both on-line and off-line (allegedly) ruined by the aformentioned NYT?

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/2 0/ 2030201&mode=flat&tid=127&tid=186&tid= 209

Was this, by any chance, mentioned in their article?

And brace yourself for a major bloom of astroturf

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Of course, a really gutsy, ethical company wants you to know the truth about their products, and enjoys the enhanced word of mouth the Internet provides, because perhaps they can save some money on advertising.

Of course and UNethical company - which may be a requriement for a PR firm - will simply put one or two people to work posting through pseudonyms to create the illusion of a vast population of enthusiastic supporters. (Like the paid endorsements and fake man-on-the-street interviews in commercials and political ads, written large on the internet.)

The term of art is "Astroturf" - for phoney grass-roots.

And after the NYT article you can expect a sudden wash of it, polluting the net as a reputationg system for some time to come.