[fjtorres]

From CNET:
http://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-upda...ning-platform/

Amazon is rolling out a big change to its customer reviews system in the US, introducing a new machine-learning platform it developed in-house to surface newer and more helpful reviews.

"The system will learn what reviews are most helpful to customers...and it improves over time," Amazon spokeswoman Julie Law said in an interview. "It's all meant to make customer reviews more useful."

The change, which started Friday, will probably go unnoticed at first, as the e-commerce giant's new platform gradually starts altering the star ratings and top reviews on product pages. The new system will give more weight to newer reviews, reviews from verified Amazon purchasers and those that more customers vote up as being helpful.

A product's 5-star rating, which previously was a pure average of all reviews, will also become weighted using those same criteria, and so may change more often.

There's no word yet on whether this new platform will roll out to other countries.

More at the source.