{"id":1169,"date":"2008-01-29T03:21:43","date_gmt":"2008-01-29T03:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"\/ifbookblog\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2008-01-29T03:21:43","modified_gmt":"2008-01-29T03:21:43","slug":"amazon_reviewer_no_7_and_the_a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/29\/amazon_reviewer_no_7_and_the_a\/","title":{"rendered":"amazon reviewer no. 7 and the ambiguities of web 2.0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2182002\/pagenum\/all\/\">Slate takes a look<\/a> at Grady Harp, Amazon&#8217;s no. 7-ranked book reviewer, and finds the amateur-driven literary culture there to be a much grayer area than expected:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Absent the institutional standards that govern (however notionally) professional journalists, Web 2.0 stakes its credibility on the transparency of users&#8217; motives and their freedom from top-down interference. Amazon, for example, describes its Top Reviewers as &#8220;clear-eyed critics [who] provide their fellow shoppers with helpful, honest, tell-it-like-it-is product information.&#8221; But beneath the just-us-folks rhetoric lurks an unresolved tension between transparency and opacity; in this respect, Amazon exemplifies the ambiguities of Web 2.0. The Top 10 List promises interactivity &#8211; ?\u009d&#8221;How do I become a Top Reviewer?&#8221; &#8211; ?\u009dyet Amazon guards its rankings algorithms closely&#8230;. As in any numbers game (tax returns, elections) opacity abets manipulation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Slate takes a look at Grady Harp, Amazon&#8217;s no. 7-ranked book reviewer, and finds the amateur-driven literary culture there to be a much grayer area than expected: Absent the institutional standards that govern (however notionally) professional journalists, Web 2.0 stakes its credibility on the transparency of users&#8217; motives and their freedom from top-down interference. Amazon, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,192,329,415,1576,1998],"tags":[2228],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amazon","category-books","category-collaborativefiltering","category-criticism","category-reading","category-web2-0","tag-books-reading-amazon-criticism-collaborativefiltering-web2-0"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}