Recent research by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) professor Vassilis
Kostakos pokes a big hole in the prevailing wisdom that the "wisdom of
crowds" is a trustworthy force on today's web. His research focused on
studying the voting patterns across several sites featuring
user-generated reviews including Amazon, IMDb, and BookCrossing.
The findings showed that a small group of users accounted for a large
number of ratings. In other words, as many have already begun to
suspect, small but powerful groups can easily distort what the "crowd"
really thinks, leading online reviews to often end up appearing
extremely positive or extremely negative.
Article Link
Kostakos pokes a big hole in the prevailing wisdom that the "wisdom of
crowds" is a trustworthy force on today's web. His research focused on
studying the voting patterns across several sites featuring
user-generated reviews including Amazon, IMDb, and BookCrossing.
The findings showed that a small group of users accounted for a large
number of ratings. In other words, as many have already begun to
suspect, small but powerful groups can easily distort what the "crowd"
really thinks, leading online reviews to often end up appearing
extremely positive or extremely negative.
Article Link
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