As a bona fide Fatbrain.com employee, I must agree with everything said about our user reviews.
1) Yes, we do have user reviews.
2) We don't have as many as our brethren in Seattle.
3) And yes, it's the traffic. Amazon has bazillions of users that we're hoping will quickly come to their senses.
Allow me to point out a few more differences between our user reviews and those on other sites:
1) Fatbrain.com screens the reviews prior to posting. Read our standards to understand why. Basically, we don't want to see those goofy reviews from "BGates" who's really some dork in his basement trying to be funny. We also expect users to explain why they think a particular book "sucked" or "was the bomb!" We don't post two word reviews that don't explain the reason for the reader's opinion. But we will post negative reviews. We don't censor anyone's opinion.
2) Fatbrain.com posts reviews within 72 hours of submission.(We usually post new reviews within 24 hours, but we occasionally like to go home on the weekends, so we use the 72 hour disclaimer.)
3) We don't allow readers to post reviews for books that haven't been published yet. I know that lots of people have ties to publishers and get review copies prior to a book's publication. But, that's not the typical user experience. So having user reviews on the site before a book even hits the stores smacks of fakery by the publisher, author and unscrupulous booksellers.
4) We feature the latest user reviews on the homepage almost every day. User reviews are how you make decisions about which book is best, so we put them up front where you can see them.
5) Indeed, we do have Fatbrain.com staff reviews. We're still a relatively small bunch of geeks, so our team of writers works furiously to review as many new books as possible. But, they're human too. If you don't agree with their assessment of a book, write in and tell us that we're morons. We'll laugh and reread the book to see if we were correct or asleep at the wheel that day.
Finally, here's my plea:
If you want to see more user reviews at Fatbrain.com - write em. You know what you like and if you're hanging out at Slashdot.org, you've got an opinion. Let's hear it! If you're funny, passionate or particularly intelligent, your review will make it on the homepage.
Slashdot Mirror
1) Yes, we do have user reviews.
2) We don't have as many as our brethren in Seattle.
3) And yes, it's the traffic. Amazon has bazillions of users that we're hoping will quickly come to their senses.
Allow me to point out a few more differences between our user reviews and those on other sites:
1) Fatbrain.com screens the reviews prior to posting. Read our standards to understand why. Basically, we don't want to see those goofy reviews from "BGates" who's really some dork in his basement trying to be funny. We also expect users to explain why they think a particular book "sucked" or "was the bomb!" We don't post two word reviews that don't explain the reason for the reader's opinion. But we will post negative reviews. We don't censor anyone's opinion.
2) Fatbrain.com posts reviews within 72 hours of submission.(We usually post new reviews within 24 hours, but we occasionally like to go home on the weekends, so we use the 72 hour disclaimer.)
3) We don't allow readers to post reviews for books that haven't been published yet. I know that lots of people have ties to publishers and get review copies prior to a book's publication. But, that's not the typical user experience. So having user reviews on the site before a book even hits the stores smacks of fakery by the publisher, author and unscrupulous booksellers.
4) We feature the latest user reviews on the homepage almost every day. User reviews are how you make decisions about which book is best, so we put them up front where you can see them.
5) Indeed, we do have Fatbrain.com staff reviews. We're still a relatively small bunch of geeks, so our team of writers works furiously to review as many new books as possible. But, they're human too. If you don't agree with their assessment of a book, write in and tell us that we're morons. We'll laugh and reread the book to see if we were correct or asleep at the wheel that day.
Finally, here's my plea:
If you want to see more user reviews at Fatbrain.com - write em. You know what you like and if you're hanging out at Slashdot.org, you've got an opinion. Let's hear it! If you're funny, passionate or particularly intelligent, your review will make it on the homepage.
Deborah Bohn
Fatbrain.com {*}