I haven’t bought a book or piece of software for years without reading about it in the Amazon reviews. Many people must be the same. But recently I’ve noticed that “Amazon Vine” reviews have appeared that violate a fundamental strength of the social web – unbiased, unincentivised, honest feedback.

Here’s what Amazon themselves say about Amazon Vine:

“Amazon Vine™ is a programme that enables a select group of Amazon customers to post opinions about new and pre-release items to help their fellow customers make educated purchase decisions. Customers are invited to become Vine Voices based on the trust they have earned in the Amazon community for writing accurate and insightful reviews. Amazon provides Vine members with free copies of products that have been submitted to the programme by publishers or manufacturers. Amazon does not influence the opinions of Vine members.”

Why Amazon Vine is a bad idea
If you are given a free copy of something to review, you may feel obliged to give it a favourable review. Amazon counter with the fact that only trusted reviewers reach this status, and that’s fair enough – except of course, to quote Lord Acton: ”Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

But who’s most disappointing is that on the product I was viewing (an accounts package), a decent proportion of reviews were from the Amazon Vine source. They ranged from thinly disguised rehashes of the back of the box features list to short, superficial reviews from people who do this for a living. The only negative review from this source said “I couldn’t get it to work” (well you wouldn’t try very hard if it was free, would you?).

I know all about this, as I used to do the same thing years ago reviewing books and records for a local newspaper, and I can recognise a review knocked up in 10 minutes from a mile away.

Amazon Vine is well intentioned but ultimately fails
So while this scheme is obviously designed to help publishers, software house etc shift units, could generate reviews for niche items where formerly there were none, and is well intentioned insofar as it attempts to only allow reviewers with some integrity to write these reviews, for me the Amazon reviews just got a lot less useful. I wish you could filter out these new semi-paid-for reviews as the ring of authenticity is not there. Amazon vine represents an unfortunate turn for the worse.

By Phil Morse