A relatively new feature of product reviews on ecommerce websites is the ability for other users to make comments on a particular review, similar to how blog comments follow a post. Not only does this encourage debates regarding the quality of a product, but it also allows people to show other sides of the arguement. If a product is being slated by someone, a comment is allowed to pick up on a particular statement and possibly correct it.

Certainly on new releases this has become a big thing as you find 100s of people’s reviews are being commented on over a period of time giving shoppers a good overview of the product’s qualities and faults. People have had the right to express whether a review is helpful for a long time which has gone a long way towards validating how legitimate a reviewer’s comments are, but sites such as Amazon and Play have taken the next step in the community-based world of Web 2.0 ecommerce web design.

Reviewers are clearly an important part of the system for sites like Amazon as they have recently set up the ‘Amazon Vine’ program which involves sending high quality reviewers – who were invited to be a part of the program – items for free through the post for them to review. I’m not sure how Amazon choose which items to be given away for free for review, but it seems that Amazon are serious about promoting specific products in this way.