Now that the heat of the ranking crash has died down slightly, it’s time to look through the rubble for truth.
Here’s some genuine journalists giving their reports:
– NPR’s All Things Considered:
- Amazon Says It Will Correct Its Search Function (click “Listen Now” to hear the segment)
Amazon Learns A Painful Lesson About The Twitter Hashtag (a NPR blog entry)
- Amazon de-ranks so-called adult books, including National Book Award winner
Amazon responds to queries, blames a ‘glitch’
How news of the Amazon de-ranking spread, and perspectives on where it’s at
– LA Times Technology column: Amazon begins to re-rank affected ‘adult’ books; theories swirl
– The Guardian (UK): ‘Gay writing’ falls foul of Amazon sales ranking system
Then there are bloggers/forumites everywhere making comments (including myself). But here are some noteworthy ones with good opinions and/or factual information:
– Dear Author blogger Jane: Amazon Using Category MetaData to Filter Rankings
– Lesbian Fiction Forum (where I hang out) – Amazon De-ranks “Adult” Books (this thread is highly emotional for valid reasons. Be warned there are some tough language, hard opinions, and soap box standing.)
There was, for a few hours, some twit saying he was the one that did this as a hacker. His code has been looked at (he actually said exactly what he allegedly did) and has been deemed faulty. In other words, “weev” didn’t do it. And if “weev” actually did, he was stupider than stupid for admitting it. His original post has disappeared. I think he said he did it as a joke that got blown completely out of proportion.
If anyone knows of any other news article, blogger post, forum thread, whatever, let me know.