Who's noticed long before me that Amazon.com reviews don't have permalinks so, even if you want to, you can't refer and talk back to other readers.
This seemingly subtle choice turns a potentially interesting conversation, distributed over space and time, into a much duller series of conventional-style reviews.
A conventional review has the pundit (or pair of pundits) recapping the plot of the book or movie, describing the genre of the music, and then propounding a thumbs-up or thumbs-down recommendation.
Links wouldn't make bad writers better writers, and they wouldn't make unoriginal thinkers into insightful observers, but they would enable a conversation to deepen the understanding and appreciation -- or dislike and disparagement -- of the work at hand.
Instead of a conversation that would build on the discussion of plot, character, sight, sound, influence and emotional impact, and could even build groups of shared interest, there's a series of redundant soliloquies.
Posted by alevin at November 28, 2004 01:42 PM | TrackBackPermalinks are baby steps. Amazon listings should accept trackbacks, so that if I blog about a new book, or a new blender for that matter, it can show up at the Amazon site.
Amazon's been cleverly ecumenical about letting other vendors sell through their site; I'm a little surprised they don't aggregate outside reviews.
Posted by: Adam Rice on November 29, 2004 09:38 AMTotally agree. I'm often frustrated when I see a good Amazon review that I can't link to it.
It's a blind-spot with them, and I hope they notice it soon. It would add a lot of value to their community and content for (probably) very little extra effort.
Posted by: phil jones on November 30, 2004 10:04 AMAnd of course they don't allow links embedded in reviews, which I know could be a maintenance nightmare, but which would also reflect current writing practices.
Posted by: Andrew on December 19, 2004 10:15 AM