iTMS Customer Reviews

groveratgroverat
Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
This is probably the most useless space-consuming feature available.



It's all 5 stars and gushing reviews.



Mariah Carey, Bob Dylan, whatever, it doesn't matter. Every song on the iTMS is, according to its customers, the best thing ever.



To put some teeth on it, I decided to do a little test with my favorite review site, metacritic.com.



I took the lowest ranked albums and compared. Metacritic scores on a scale of 100, iTMS on a scale of 5.



Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill Acoustic

Metacritic: 34

iTMS: 4 (Only one review so far, though. Probably Alanis herself.)



Jason Mraz - Mr. A-Z (someone should kill him for that)

Metacritic: 42

iTMS: 4



H.I.M. - Dark Light

Metacritic: 45

iTMS: 4.5



311 - Don't Tread On Me (how patriotic)

Metacritic: 48

iTMS: 4



It's not going to get better as time goes on. The only people who will bother to rate it are those who will buy it and like it already.



Stupid feature, I hope they get rid of it.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    gene cleangene clean Posts: 3,481member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by groverat

    Stupid feature, I hope they get rid of it.



    No chance. Positive "reviews" bring more attention to the product, and more attention means more mindshare (which will be followed, shortly, by marketshare).



    More positive reviews = more people buying tracks. More people buying tracks = more money for Apple.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    That's an extremely manipulative and cynical way to run things.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    gene cleangene clean Posts: 3,481member
    Of course it is, but that's not the only cynical thing about it. One other thing: you can't turn that thing off. So basically you are forced to read them as they're all over the place.



    But they're not all 5 star ratings. Ashlee Simpson's new album has at least three 1 star ratings in the first page (out of 142).



    So hopefully people will wake up and rate them according to their musical finesse, and not give them 5 starts because "OMG!! LINKING PARK IS THE R0X0RZ!!11!!1
  • Reply 4 of 5
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    It's a good thing the only song I have ever bought from Apple is that Pixies song that wasn't released anywhere else.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Uh, never taken a gander at Amazon? It's always either 5 stars or 1 star, the people in the middle, with a few exceptions, aren't going to bother.



    People wanted it, they got it.



    It *is* a waste, but it seems a bit like another case of you're damned if you do, damned if you don't if you're Apple. On the one hand, everyone cries foul when Apple doesn't throw in all these options and features , the rationale being that it gives uses more choice. Here they throw in some fluff that's easy to pass over, and what's the reaction? Foul!
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