For the longest time Amazon has kept the book reviews on its various websites in separate silos, but now the retailer is copying review from one site to another.
Anthony Wessel, owner and oeprator of the ebook deals site Digital Book Today, confirmed something I had been hearing from authors for a few days now. Book reviews posted on Amazon's UK and Canadian websites are now showing up on Amazon.com. (There's no word yet on whether reviews from Amazon Australia were also impacted).
The Canadian and UK reviews are now listed on Amazon.com under the section "Top International Reviews", and the ratings left by reviewers are factored into each book's overall star rating.
Judging by reports from KBoards, it would appear Amazon is still working out the bugs. Not all books are showing international reviews, and I am told the old review counts are still being shown on series lists and the also-bought section.
While I am seeing only reviews from the UK and Canada, what I found especially interesting was that there's an option to "Translate all reviews to English". Clearly Amazon is planning to integrate all book reviews from all of its sites. Given the limitations of translation software, this plan is doomed, but it's going to be fun to read the gibberish generated by Amazon's auto-translators.
Have you spotted any new reviews yet?
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