sharke
Thanks Amazon, for providing me with such a reliable way of rejecting a product. I would never buy anything from a company that paid for tainted reviews (unbiased my ass)!
...

 
On another place, there was a discussion about writing reviews of music, and one guy was being a total turkey, saying that writing bad reviews were important and a valuable point of view. For me, I do not write a review if it doesn't tickle me at all ... and because I have a lot of respect for music, in general, I refuse to put it down, although I will often make a fun comment about Metallica, or Strummy's tastes, or someone else's sheep dip lasagna!
 
A couple of years back, someone did ask me to review some albums, and they were about 4 or 5 different bands, that for my ears, sound pretty much the same, and I think they were from the Wayside group, and for some reason, all I could hear in all of those was a FZ wannabe copy, and music that lacked inner feel ... it just wasn't "alive". And I returned it explaining that I could not come up with the right words for it. To this day, my reviews are not ... generic ... and dictated by public taste (yuuukkk ... specially when the conglomerate exaggerates numbers so you think they are right, and they know what's number one and good!) ... my reviews are internal reactions and to me, that meant that there was something in it that was good, or the reaction would not be there.
 
It's just bizarre ... like I would waste my time writing a bad review for many bands! They have a right to their music, but it is not for me to review it. Someone else will do it, instead.
 

Moshkito
 
 For me, I do not write a review if it doesn't tickle me at all ... and because I have a lot of respect for music, in general, I refuse to put it down, although I will often make a fun comment about Metallica, or Strummy's tastes, or someone else's sheep dip lasagna!

At least I don't report you for making 'fun' of me, or the music I enjoy

Someone has sheep dip lasagna??? 

I bet Steve didn't even know that there was a connection between A Flock of Seagulls and one of his favorite bands.
 
Turns out, the band name (A Flock of Seagulls) comes from a line in the song "Toiler on the Sea" by the Stranglers, which appears on their album Black And White.
 

sharke
 
 
I'm aware that there are other kinds of phony reviews, however you can pretty much spot those immediately by clicking on the user name and seeing their review history. If for example they have 50 reviews all posted on the same day, I'm not going to trust them as far as I could throw them. But whichever way you slice it, there is no denying that someone who has received a free product in exchange for a review has been paid for that review and hence the credibility of that review has been compromised. There will be people out there who have turned receiving free items into a career, and how do you know they deliberately give good reviews in order to make themselves look more attractive as reviewers to companies which give out free stuff? After all, if I was looking to solicit reviews by giving away freebies, the last person I'd select would be a super critical Amazon reviewer who picks fault with everything. 

No doubt.
 
I agree that anyone getting freebies for reviews is going to be highly incentivized to give good reviews to keep the largess flowing. The question is whether a disclosure of this conflict of interest is helpful in discounting an over-enthusiastic review. It is almost a standard practice among journalists who review products to have the review copy provided free of charge by someone with an interest in the review. Some of them insist that the product only be a loan, rather than a gift, but a long term loan may be in effect, and disclosure of the source and conditions is usually just a perfunctory as the Amazon cases you mention. At another level, it is likely that most reviewers depend indirectly on the product manufacturer's approval for their livelihood. After all, the least likely publication you would select in which to advertise your product is one that would hire a reviewer who denigrates your products. It is extremely unusual to do as Consumer Reports does and purchase review copies anonymously at random retail suppliers and refuse to accept advertising. All product reviews are suspect, and should be evaluated primarily on the basis of the features they describe, and to a lesser extent for the problems they expose. The problems they ignore may not show up in any kind of rating system they use, and of course you will not learn about those from the review. 
 
I disagree that you can locate most false reviews by just checking the reviewer's names or pseudonyms against recent postings. The companies that make their profits from generating positive **** have to be able to fool, not just the casual web visitor, but some perfunctory robotic and human analysis from the sites that they are gaming. There are now companies that market their ability to locate the false reviews of the companies that are faking them.  There is some benefit to knowing that the reviewer has actually purchased the product and that a record appears in the reviewer's account with the site, but that is certainly not a guarantee. It is certainly more useful to know that the reviewer has received payment in kind for the review, than not to know it at all. 
 
I have never considered the most seller website reviews to be worth spit. Mostly they are too short and simple-minded to provide any real information. But my experience with them is more the opposite. A customer who gets burned by purchasing a defective or unsuitable product is more likely than a satisfied customer to post his opinion publicly. I am amazed at the huge proportion of negative reviews on sites like Newegg.com. If anywhere near that proportion of the marketed products were that bad, the company would be out of business.  
 

I think the difference between a journalist and your average Amazon reviewer though is that the journalist has staked his career on his reputation and thus has far more to lose if he is accused of corruption. 

I was also really annoyed with Amazon for allowing this......I recently wanted to get one of those 3d Virtual Reality Headsets, but decided not to (after finding out that the majority of reviews done were after people receive freebies).
 
Practically, they're just being paid to lie. It seems that these companies and the people/reviewers that support them will go through any kind of despicable methods in deceiving the public into buying their goods (just for a freebie or some compensation).
 
Sad to say this, but my general (default) outlook on people is to mistrust them first, and wait until they earn that trust. What ever happened to good old fashioned honesty? Just say it like it is.......say what you mean and mean what you say.

Mesh
What ever happened to good old fashioned honesty? Just say it like it is.......say what you mean and mean what you say.

 
Ok.  I like becan.  Specifically, I'd like some right now. 
 

My unbiased review of the Coffee House,
 
OK, so first off I was looking for a Daw that would fit my needs, you know, reliable, easy, and with lots of free plugins.  I tried them all, and they were actually very similar.  Each of them had their own learning curve and strengths, but once you mixed your tracks down to a .wav file I couldn't really tell one from the other.
 
So, as you might see, I was confused.  Which one should I choose.  Then one day I stumbled upon the cakewalk forum and my choice became easier to make.  I mean really, the thing that sets Sonar apart from all the others is the forum, especially the coffee house.
 
In the coffee house you can talk about anything you want, even religion and politics if you are sly enough to use coded language.  You will also meet all kinds of really cool people who give serious thought to their responses and are never at all snarky.  The coffee house is so cool that you will often times find yourself spending inordinate amounts of time reading and writing cute responses on practically any subject that could possibly come to mind, even poop.  Sometimes you will spend so much time there that you forget to record music.
 
Most importantly you will make lifelong friends in the coffee house.  In fact I married one of the most popular posters.
 
Well, back to the original review. after much hand wringing and wishy-washy behavior, I chose to purchase Sonar.  It is by far the best daw there ever was, but the coffee house is the gold nugget in the proverbial pouch.  If you are unsure on which daw to go with, as I was, do yourself a favor and visit the coffee house.  You will see what I mean, and you just might find your soul mate, and you will know that Sonar is the bestest daw ever.
 
Jesse Q. Screed
 
PS, my sock drawer is nearly organized!  I can't wait to get back joe joe.