>I want some way to have word of mouth recommendations work over the net, without it being game-able. perhaps a system where you must pay (a very small token amount) to review?
That would make it even more of a money arms race. Ultimately you want something like personal recommendations where people attach their own reputations to their recommendations; google is trying to push something on these lines with google+.
but a person's reputation on the net is inherently non-existant, unless they're forced to use their real name, and is somewhat known/famous.
Being able to create fake reviews and fake recommendations is the same problem as spam in email (cept spam is easier to filter out). If sending email costs the sender some token amount (say, 1cent per 1000 email), it would probably stop majority of spam, because it just became cost-ineffective. That was why i was suggesting paying token amount for writing reviews - tho i have no doubts there are flaws with that idea….
That would make it even more of a money arms race. Ultimately you want something like personal recommendations where people attach their own reputations to their recommendations; google is trying to push something on these lines with google+.