Thanks, that link is particularly good.

Posted by: Eric Scheid on December 7, 2002 04:17 AM

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Wow! That's the most orchestrated effort I've seen since the infamous 'Family Circus' incident.

P.S. The song "Hot Shot City" is particularly good.

Posted by: Michael on December 7, 2002 04:54 AM

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The Register recently reported on a method to get Amazon to report unlikely combinations in its “customers who shopped for this item also shopped for these items” reports.

Richard Smith explains how the method worked in the case of a book by Pat Robertson and a book by Bill Brent who has a somewhat different perspective than Pat Robertson.

"Someone just got friends to visit the Web pages for the two books a bunch of times. Since the Robertson book hasn't sold very well, Amazon relies on page hits for recommendations and not book purchases."

Some older reports on methods to fool Amazon:

Family Circus
Abuse of the reviwer ranking system

Posted by: Kent on December 7, 2002 10:58 PM

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While maybe not as funny as the Has-to-turn-it-off CD reviews, the reviews of "Teen Steam" starring Alyssa Milano are quite humorous as well:

Teen Steam
http://tinyurl.com/3d5p

Posted by: Croc O' Lyle on December 9, 2002 09:46 AM

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The humor is somewhat muted (for me) by my amazement at how one person (or even a small group of persons) can maintain the focus to post so many reviews over so many days. I'd go insane. The sheer computer-hours alone are staggering. All I can hope is that this was done on the company dime, because thinking about spending free time on such a project makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Also, as a German, I am deeply offended at the insinuation that we have no taste in rock music. I disagree - did we not produce The Scorpions, a decidedly hard-rocking band? Their song "Rock you like a Hurricane" was particularly good.

Posted by: Lydia on December 9, 2002 01:55 PM

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