Jorge Lopez

“Studies on Trust and Reputation in Peer-to-Peer Networks by researchers like Yao Wang and Julita Vassileva of the University of Saskatchewan, as well as Minaxi Gupta, Paul Judge, and Mostafa Ammar of the Georgia Institute of Technology found that the average consumer prefers and trusts reviews by peers over those by professional critics5960. This is somewhat odd, because professional critics have made it their life mission to distinguish the good from the bad. For every published review, they would spend a significant amount of time collecting all the necessary information, going through the experience, just to write a well thought-out piece reflecting their depth of knowledge and commitment. But when it comes down to it, consumers seem to prefer the thoughts and opinions of other consumers, who likely do not have the same level of sophistication and understanding with the product, let alone spent the same amount of time experiencing and reviewing the item in question. At the end of the day, we value the thoughts of people we can relate to, often more than the voice of authoritative experts.”
― Yu-kai Chou, Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards