Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have been reading the reviews in-depth to try to determine whether this product is actually one that people find useful and cost-efficient. Alas, you will never be able to tell based on most of the reviews. The company that makes this product just went public in November 2010, and even a cursory read shows that its employees and/or agents have been spamming Amazon with fake positive reviews. Out of the 50 reviews since November 2010, 16 are 5-star reviews and 3 are 4-star reviews from alleged customers who have never reviewed a single other product on Amazon. (I exaggerate a bit; those 19 "customers" have collectively reviewed 5 other products.) Each of those reviews is only a few sentences long and says little other than "I my wife / husband / mom / kids love it, what a great product!" A 20th spam review (from December 27) deserves a special call-out: It awards 3 stars but states: "The product is awesome and the flavors of soda are all actually pretty spot on except the "sprite" flavor, but my kids still like it so that is ok, but everything else is good. The reason I only gave it 3 stars is because Amazon is not giving you a good deal. If you buy it from the sodastream.com site you will not only get the above product you will also get a starter set of flavors, that Amazon is charging $10 extra for and depending on model you will also get a couple full size bottles of soda flavors included which Amazon does not have. The product is awesome just don't buy it here go to to [...]!" Way to undermine your channel partner, Sodastream! In contrast to these spam reviews, the other 30 give an average rating of 3.3 stars, and the average reviewer has reviewed 40 other products. I would not be surprised if reviews older than November 2010 show the same pattern; I'm just not willing to take the time to analyze them. To be clear, I am not saying the product is bad, merely that the 3.3 stars and more detailed comments from the non-spam reviewers give a more realistic picture. (For those who want the details, the spam reviews were posted on November 11, 18, and 27; December 4, 18, and 27; January 3, 4, 7, 12, 12, 16, and 18; February 7, 19, and 26; and March 1, 4, 12, and 14.)