Benefiting from the Groundswell

 I found this weeks reading very interesting, especially because personally, I use user reviews all the time when shopping for any type of new product. Sometimes, when I see products advertised on TV, I look up online reviews for things that I would not even be interested in buying just out of curiosity. Bernoff mentions that "83 percent [of the public] said they trusted recommendations from friends and acquaintances, and more than half trusted online reviews from strangers. At the same time, trust in ads continued to plummet (102)." Since I began looking for product reviews online, my trust in advertisements has certainly diminished. I was already extremely suspicious, but now that I can look up actual users opinions so quickly, and have found that the products that seem too good to be true pretty much always are, I now never buy things without looking up reviews. And really, why would I? Of course, I would be more likely to trust the opinion of someone I know rather than anonymous online reviewers, but that is not always an option.  Even though I benefit from the groundswell when researching new purchases all the time, it was amazing to me that online reviews have gone to far that now even cancer patients are using the internet to exchange information about the best clinics, medications, etc. That being said, I was even more surprised to see that according the Bernoff, "There's no proof - yet - that online buzz leads directly to sales in every industry (92)." If people with terminal illnesses are using the groundswell to find out where to seek medical advice, what other evidence to people need to prove that online discussion about pretty much anything effects sales?

 
I was expecting to see at least a paragraph about companies putting fake reviews of their products or services, since I am sure that Bernoff must know about this unethical practice. I would have been curious to learn if he knew of any companies that have gotten caught doing this, or if their are any companies who employee people specifically to write fake user reviews on websites that are positive in their favor and negative reviews on their competitors products.