It's been a few months since my lucrative side gig of writing fake amazon reviews was brought to an untimely end, and the painful memories of Black Thursday have finally started to fade. So what do I get in my e-mail inbox?
Dear Amazon.com reviewer:
Who are the people writing reviews at Amazon.com? Why do they do it? And how often?
Answers to such questions can enable designers of online forums to better facilitate participation. As a participant at Amazon.com you can help us by taking a few minutes to share your experiences.
We are academic researchers in the Information and Decision Sciences Department of the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota... working on an academic research project to examine individual behavior in online forums.
Despite breaking into the vaunted top 2000 reviewers during my brief yet meteoric run, I'm not entirely sure I'm the person they're hoping to reach here. The survey asked a lot of questions about whether you've included your Amazon reviews on your resume and/or to get a job. Call me a cynic, but somehow I doubt pointing a prospective employer to a page like this would really help get your foot in the door.