New York Times

More Companies Pay Heed to Their 'Word of Mouse' Reputation


Early this year, the wrath of the World Wide Web rained down on Intuit when its TurboTax software programs displeased some customers, who then promptly posted their grievances all over Internet forums. The velocity in the spread of those critical remarks created a crisis for the company and a colorful case study for the budding academic field that examines the dynamic of online reputations. In January, soon after TurboTax's release, angry customer reviews flooded Extremetech.com, CNET.com, Slashdot.org and many other sites that allow the public to contribute product reviews. Much of the criticism was aimed at antipiracy features in the software that made it hard for a customer to install the program on more than one computer and created the impression with some that Intuit was tracking users surreptitiously. On Amazon.com one reviewer wrote, "This reeks to high heaven!" Comments descended from there.