25 Jan 2005 | duff said...

Whenever I check out a book on Amazon, I always sort the reviews by "lowest rated" first, because I find that the books with lots of 1's and 5's are often the best.

Now, what I'd like to see is Amazon taking this idea and giving books a "controversial" label, or even displaying the "rating curve" for a particular book with a little dynamically generated graphic.

~duff
duff {at} duff {dot} cc

25 Jan 2005 | Jake said...

We use a system like this for choosing shirts to print on Threadless... We find that the best selling tees aren't the highest scoring ones so much as the tees with the right 'rating curve'

Very interesting stuff...

25 Jan 2005 | James Tauber said...

Last August, I noticed this bi-modal distribution in ratings for Paul Graham's Hackers and Painters.

25 Jan 2005 | Bob H. said...

Or, bare with me because this is far fetched, 1 star means that the book is poorly written and a 5 stars means it's well written.

25 Jan 2005 | Bob H. said...

;)

25 Jan 2005 | Bob H. said...

Oh I get it, stars of 1 and 5 for the same book! D'OH!

25 Jan 2005 | Tom said...

The IMDB ratings curves that you can see if you click on the vote section when you're logged in also display that kind of behaviour. The top 250 and bottom 100 films have horseshoe patterns; more average rated films have much closer to a normal distribution, though most also seem to have a little tail around either 1 or 10.

I'd be interested to see where this research goes.

27 Jan 2005 | runtime said...

Like Duff, I read the "Lowest Rated" reviews first. If I am reading the reviews, I am already interested in the book. I am looking for reasons NOT to buy it! :)

27 Jan 2005 | runtime said...

I see that 37 Signals' "Defensive Design for the Web" book has a very steep incline, i.e. a couple 1s and 2s, but mostly 4s and 5s. Congratulations!

28 Jan 2005 | perspective said...

i see that 37 signals' "defensive design for the web" book sales are also falling like a rock.