BTW, he put instructions for how to test at https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/jGP5249NppF
Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
281–290 of 400 posts
Re: Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
#282What I find interesting here is that Benson is essentially using his employer as a reputation guarantor. I guess depending on the company's HR that could fall either way of a) This is great, we're getting nice PR b) Mr Benson, we need to have a quiet word about what it is you do here and what Google is not in the business of. Really interesting. edit: I assumed this is part of his job. I just find the publishing of t…
I find the willingness of Google to put their name of this very interesting. This does not seem to be a "my views are mine alone and not my employer's" thing. I wonder about the ethical and legal aspects of this. What stops Google from bashing Microsoft products this way? What happens if he makes a mistake in testing, and the loss in reputation causes a small company to go out of business?
Re: Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon users do rely heavily on reviews, generally. I think with the Google engineers' reviews promoted to the top by the number of people who have marked them as helpful, market forces will finish the job. Few people will buy them, and those that do will have done so against solid advice. Amazon, of course, can delist things or not at their pleasure.
Or the seller creates a new account and keep selling the cables until another bad review. And then does the same again and so on.
Once a part gets a bunch of good reviews unless the other one is way cheaper people will just by the known good one.
Re: Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely agree with this. I use my phone heavily (Ingress mostly) and it's not uncommon to go through 3 or 4 full charge cycles a day or to just keep my phone plugged in all day. Before I started buying Anker's cables, I would burn through a cable every two weeks or so. First monoproce, although I quickly dropped those. Then several other brands. Another point in Anker's favor is that the profile of the USB-C plug…
Another Ingress player here. I know several people who managed to destroy Anker cables due to Ingress, but all in all Anker still seems to be the best choice. Almost everything else just breaks much faster. One exception to this are the cables which came with both my Motorola Moto Gs phone. They charge very fast and I use one of them for over 1.5 years and it does not show any wear. I really wish I knew where to buy…
Yeah the cables Samsung provides are pretty solid too.
Re: Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
#285What I find interesting here is that Benson is essentially using his employer as a reputation guarantor. I guess depending on the company's HR that could fall either way of a) This is great, we're getting nice PR b) Mr Benson, we need to have a quiet word about what it is you do here and what Google is not in the business of. Really interesting. edit: I assumed this is part of his job. I just find the publishing of t…
I would think this is appropriate disclosure, and probably part of the job... to say "this is great" or "this sucks" without disclosing that you were paid to review the product and/or the context it's unethical.
This is entirely ethical, and the context is stated clearly... I think it's great.
Re: Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bingo. You always need to check the most recent reviews because of this: a solid history of 5000 5-star reviews is meaningless if the past 200 are 2-star reviews saying, "Not what I expected". And still, no guarantees.
Exactly. And then you look up and you're 20+ minutes into skimming reviews in order to buy a $3 care remote battery or cable and wondering why the hell you didn't just drive to target / walk over the apple store because you'd be done with the errand by now.
I ran into exactly this earlier today. I needed to get a new Macbook charger and just buying one directly from the Apple store nearby was faster than (as I first attempted) trying to find one on Amazon without "this is actually a counterfeit imitation" warnings in the reviews.
At this point I just flatly don't trust Amazon anymore for small electrical devices, because there's too much of a chance (even for things labeled with brand names) that it's actually a cheap knockoff that will short-circuit and set something on fire eventually.
Re: Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
#287What I find interesting here is that Benson is essentially using his employer as a reputation guarantor. I guess depending on the company's HR that could fall either way of a) This is great, we're getting nice PR b) Mr Benson, we need to have a quiet word about what it is you do here and what Google is not in the business of. Really interesting. edit: I assumed this is part of his job. I just find the publishing of t…
I used to test Xbox 360 network connectivity, during which we'd regularly buy consumer routers, hubs, and switches and ensure compatibility with Xbox 360's network stack. (There were different types of NAT which could cause problems, and some had problems with low MTUs.) It never occurred to me, or anybody else working in the lab as far as I know, to post the results of our testing on Amazon reviews. We just did the…
Seems to me having stuff like this is a good thing... I think a lot of headaches could have been averted had you been able to, or advised to do likewise in posting reviews in common sales channels (Amazon, Newegg, etc).
Re: Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
#288The current rhetoric when it comes to the failings of online reviews is to point at fraudulent reviews. I posit that, rather, it's the lack of weighting reviews by the expertise of the reviewers. Clearly the reviews of a hardware engineer at Google should have more weight to them than an average consumer (on products like this), because as bkmartin points out, the average consumer has no idea as to the true quality o…
When buying something online, I make a habit of reading a couple of the negative reviews. Sometimes they're, "I meant to buy a toaster, and misclicked on this television instead. Makes poor toast. 2/5." But sometimes they're more like, "It worked great for two years, and then became sentient and strangled my pet fish. 2/5" Rating distributions only tell you part of the story.
I usually go through a few of the reviews, more depending on the price and relative number of reviews...
Of course with technical goods, you see a lot of reviews from people who don't know/understand what they were buying... (1/5 stars, this network adapter [PCI Ethernet] wouldn't work in my laptop)
Other negative reviews are about dealing with amazon for returns, or wrong product shipment, which really shouldn't be under the product review. Though it's worth seeing some of that.
Re: Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
#289What I find interesting here is that Benson is essentially using his employer as a reputation guarantor. I guess depending on the company's HR that could fall either way of a) This is great, we're getting nice PR b) Mr Benson, we need to have a quiet word about what it is you do here and what Google is not in the business of. Really interesting. edit: I assumed this is part of his job. I just find the publishing of t…
I find the willingness of Google to put their name of this very interesting. This does not seem to be a "my views are mine alone and not my employer's" thing. I wonder about the ethical and legal aspects of this. What stops Google from bashing Microsoft products this way? What happens if he makes a mistake in testing, and the loss in reputation causes a small company to go out of business?
> What happens if he makes a mistake in testing, and the loss in reputation causes a small company to go out of business?
What about it? I'm sure Google makes minor changes to their search algorithm that drive small companies into bankruptcy all the time.
Re: Google engineer writing Amazon reviews on USB-C cables that don't work
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
To quote Tommy Boy: "Hell, I can take a crap in a box and slap a guarantee on it for you"
The quote I always seem to remember from that movie is: "New guy puking his guts out".
For me it's "fat man in a little coat." Sad to think that he's been gone eighteen years now.