Online Reviews: Why does it matter?

How many times have you clicked on the rating and reviews for a product or service? Did those reviews become the deciding factor in your purchase? Over the past five or so years there has been a significant increase on the use of websites featuring customer ratings and reviews of products and services. These websites include (but not limited to):

Yelp

Google

Amazon

Tripadvisor

Toptable

Increasingly the importance and weight of online reviews have grown to the point they may affect the profits and returns of businesses. Local/small businesses seem to have the most to gain (or lose) from this, and it shows accordingly. In an article by Myles Anderson, he states that “More local consumers are now taking notice of online reviews and online reviews are an important factor in deciding which local business to use. Consumers appear to best swayed by location and price which don’t represent any guarantee of quality or reliability.” Supporting Anderson’s statement, it is found that approximately 52% of consumers are more likely to use a local/small business if the reviews show to be positive.

However, local/small businesses are not the only businesses heavily affected by the increased significance of online reviews. The success or failure of hotels and restaurants is starting to become heavily dependent upon these customer reviews to the point where even just a half-star increase in rating can prove to have a positive effect on bookings.

With the growing importance of online reviews one must begin to question the legitimacy of some or many of them. It is not an uncommon phenomenon, today, for businesses to go on consumer review sites to post fake reviews in their favor. These reviews are often very biased and overly enthusiastic and often used to counteract negative reviews floating around. Though this is becoming more of a problem as the internet expands in everyday lives, some websites like Tripadvisor are trying to prevent businesses from doing so on their sites.

 

How important are online reviews to you? Will you regard them as much as personal recommendations?

 References:

Anderson, Myles. "Column: Local Search." Search Engine Land. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2013.

"Customer Reviews Affect 6 in 10 Online Shoppers." MarketingCharts. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2013.

Doward, Jamie. "How Online Reviews Are Crucial to a Restaurant's Takings." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 01 Sept. 2012. Web. 20 Jan. 2013.

"The Importance of Online Reviews for Local Businesses | US Daily Review." The Importance of Online Reviews for Local Businesses | US Daily Review. US Daily Review, n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2013.

 

What are RSS feeds and Why Should We Care?

RSS is an abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication, Real-Time Simple Syndication, or   Rich Site Summary and was invented in 1995. 

RSS brings the best of the websites to you. Think of RSS like your own personal assistant – all you have to do is press a little orange square button that you are interested in. Next, RSS will automatically keep track of all your favorite websites.

Many websites offer RSS feeds or sometime called web feeds, which you can subscribe so that you are notified when new content appears in chronological order. To subscribe, you will need RSS reader software, which looks like an email inbox and some even offer pop-up notifications.

Most RSS feeds keep a running list of the latest content items posted to a site. Each item in the feed includes a headline and often a summary that corresponds to a new piece of content on the website. Some venues offer their full content (complete articles) via RSS feed instead of just headlines and summaries. There are many other options to web feed content, too.

What are the main advantages? RSS feeds save your time by looking through a web feed much quicker than you can browse a web site. You can maintain a list of several RSS feeds from your favorites sites. In other words, if (like most people) you have limited time for web browsing, you can check your feed reader to quickly learn what your favorites sites offer, and go straight to the items that interest you most. Lastly, RSS feeds are definitely SPAM-PROOF and because you have not handed over your email address or other personal details. You can unsubscribe from an RSS feed at anytime. Is that cool?

A list of popular online, desktop, and mobile RSS feed readers available below:

• Yahoo! Pipes for Yahoo! email account users. www.pipes.yahoo.com
• Google Reader for Google email accounts. www.google.com/reader
• FeedDemon 4.1 for Windows users. www.feeddemon.com
• NetNewsWire for Mac/iPhone/iPad users. www.netnewswireapp.com
• Pulse for iPhone/iPad/Android/Kindle users. www.pulse.me
• NewsGator for Apps users. www.newsgator.com/rss-readers.aspx

Additionally, RSS makes it a great way to discover when new blog post cartoons, podcasts or online video clips. Social media services such as Facebook and Twitter offer RSS feeds making RSS handy for keeping track of your friends. The truth is no single company owns RSS and it does not have a central point of failure, so it is impossible to be bought or sold, shut down, blocked or used as a pawn by politicians or big companies. Facebook and Twitter play a similar role to RSS but when social media services rise and fall - RSS lives on. 

Do you agree? Will Facebook and Twitter kill RSS in the future? What are your thoughts?

References:

Gahran, Amy.  “What are webfeeds (RSS), and why should you need them?” Contenious.com. 4 May 2004. WordPress. 16 Jan. 2013

Turner, Adam. “Keep it Really Simple, stupid.” The Age. 15 Sept. 2011 Web. 17 Jan. 2013

http://youtu.be/0klgLsSxGsU

Virtual Worlds: What Are They?

We all know that one person that "lives" on there computer. What could they possibly be doing for hours on end? When  you ask them their answer is usually,"I'm playing my game or I have to check how my avatar is doing." This means they probably playing a massively multiplayer virtual world online game.Some of the more popular ones we know of today are:
World of Warcraft
Sims
Second Life
Halo
Face of Mankind
Gods War Online

Massively multiplayer online games represent a range of worlds, including ones based fantasy, science fiction, the real world, super heroes, sports, horror, and historical. The most common games are fantasy worlds, unlike real world based games are pretty rare. Many massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPGs) have real-time actions and communication. Players can create a character that travels between buildings, towns, and worlds to carry out business or leisure activities. Communication is usually textual, but real-time voice communication is also possible.Virtual worlds are not limited to games but, depending on the degree of immediacy presented, can encompass computer conferencing and text based chat rooms  Sometimes, emoticons are available, to show feelings and facial expression.

"A virtual world, or virtual environment, is usually an Internet-based simulated environment inhabited by avatars, or graphic representations, of its interactive users"(Safko). An avatar can be represented textually, by a photograph, logo, image, or more popularly used a 3-D cartoon-like person, animal, or object. Although the social interactions of participants in virtual worlds are often viewed in the context of 3-D Games, other forms of interaction are common as well, including forums, blogs, wikis, chat rooms, instant messaging, and video-conferences. Communities have their own rules, topics, jokes, and language. Members of these communities can find like-minded people to interact with. whether this be through a shared passion, the wish to share information, or a desire to meet new people and experience new things. Users may develop personalities within the community adapted to the particular world they are interacting with, which can impact the way they think and act. Internet friendships and participation online communities tend to complement existing friendships and civic participation rather than replacing or diminishing such interactions The most popular virtual world is Second Life. The name itself is kind of explains what it is, it's the players' second life outside of the real world.  Rosedale developed Rig, a large, slow, expensive, and difficult to wear and use system. It then evolved into the Internet software Linden World, which was designed to allow its users to play games and socialized with other users in 3D online environment. Linden World then grew into today’s Second Life software experience.     In 2008 Second Life had a banner year. There were 16,785,531 people registered Second Life and "residents" spent more than US $100 million on virtual goods and services. Across the world players participated in more than 397 million hours.

Disabled or chronically invalided people of any age can benefit enormously from experiencing the mental and emotional freedom gained by temporarily leaving their disabilities behind and doing, through the medium of their avatars, things as simple and potentially accessible to able, healthy people as walking, running, dancing, sailing, fishing, swimming, surfing, flying, skiing, gardening, exploring and other physical activities which their illnesses or disabilities prevent them from doing in real life. This one of the benefits of the virtual worlds. But people with medical conditions aren't the only people using them. Companies are using them as well. Big names like Disney run have their avatars and businesses running 24/7, so anyone that that logs in at anytime can "go" to Disney and have some to interact with.Other than people that use these worlds for business and relief from their medical condition, is it beneficial for people to sit at their computers or TVs for hours on end? They is no end goal for the game, you are basically living a second life through the computer.Thank you for reading. I would like to know your thoughts.
What do you think?
Do you think virtual worlds can become too much?

ReferencesBateman, Patrick J., Jacqueline C. Pike, Nicholas Berente, and Sean Hansen. "Journal of Virtual Worlds Research." Time for a Post-Mortem?: Business Professionals' Perspectives on the Disillusionment of Virtual Worlds. N.p., 2012. Web.Kamberi, Shahnaz. "Journal of Virtual Worlds Research." A Cross-Case Analysis of Possible Facial Emotion Extraction Methods That Could Be Used in Second Life. N.p., 2012. Web.Safko, Lon. The Social Media Bible Tactics, Tools, & Strategies for Business Success. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. Print

Online Albums: The Scrapbook 2.0

Did you have a fun night out with your friends? You typically post a picture. Have a really delicious looking meal? You probably posted a picture. Our personal lives are typically closely tied with our online world, and sometimes even overlap our professional lives. Photo-sharing is often how we keep friends and family both far and near in the loop about our lives. It is like a real snapshot of lives followed by hashtags. However, these regular updates of pictures can have a harmful effect on our lives.

With all of these things that seem normal or just life, there are people who want to use them to make advertisements more personal and less picture-esq. Instagram recently released new terms and conditions that allowed them to harness these pictures for third party use without consent or compensation. The outrage of new terms lead to Instagram losing half of their daily uses a month after they were released. Even though Instagram retracted the new terms many people felt like their personal lives, and up close and personal moments were violated. Even though Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom said that they would be changing a clause of the new terms and replacing it with the original terms. They have decided to gear away from marketing and come back to it at a later date. However, this cut was already too deep and many people moved to photo-sharing sites such as Yahoo!'s Flickr which was created to rival Instagram with similar features, including being an app and having filters.

Many large companies and celebrities stopped using Instagram with the new terms, including National Geographic and Kim Kardashian. The number of users went from 16.35 million users to 8.42 million users in a week. 

Ironically, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook is allowed to access your photos much like Instagram intended to. However, Facebook has always been able to access photos.

A new app allows people to share photos for limited amounts of time, Snapchat. You take a picture and it is gone in seconds once opened, and you even get a notification if your photo was screenshotted by the receiving end. While this technology is new, many arguments against it include that it is the new way to "sext" AKA "sexual texting" or sending inappropriate pictures. Snapchat does not hold pictures so it is still under investigation.

Inappropriate pictures often effect job prospects for people. Many people's personal lives overlap with their professional because they post pictures of them getting drunk. There have been instances when a woman was depressed and took a leave of absence from work. She then posted pictures of her "having
fun and being happy" forcing her to lose benefits. It is still in litigation.

What are your thoughts? What do you think of using an individual's photos for advertisements? How about that Facebook can and Instragram cannot?


References

Bosker, Bianca. "Nathalie Blanchard: Depressed Woman Loses Benefits Over Facebook Photos." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 Nov. 2009. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.

"Instagram Loses Users in Photo Rights Backlash." TVNZ. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.

Kelly, Heather. "Instagram Backtracks on Terms of Service." CNN. Cable News Network, 21 Dec. 2012. Web. 12 Jan. 2013.

Social Media in Mainland China – “bei hexie le”

What? Bei hexie le??? For your information, that is not a typo. In Mandarin Chinese, “bei hexie le” means “(something) has been harmonized.”

According to the Wall Street Journal report by Xiao Qiang and Perry Link, people in mainland China have to be very “creative” when communicating on the internet because the government is actively and heavily monitoring people’s conversation in the cyberspace. So, instead of posting “my wallet has been stolen” on the internet, one must use “wo bei hexie le” as a “synonymic but good” expression (translated into “I have been harmonized” for the bad accident happened to me). Otherwise, this kind of messages will be screened, and their voices will never be heard.

For a long time, I have known and accepted the fact that I cannot communicate with my family and friends in mainland China via social media. They have no access to Facebook, Twitter, or my blogs --- you can be the judge here and decide whether my blog is strictly business focus or promoting anti-China thoughts/activities.

Regardless, I have to admit that I am very impressed with the power of the Chinese government. How can it manage to literally cease the social media movement in a country of over 1.3 billion people? Can China continue to do so by stopping the social media movement in the history of human development? Very likely, China has the power to do that, but I wonder if such scrutiny on censorship will actually do more harm than good to the country and the Chinese citizens.

I am not a politician by any means, but I see social media as a very powerful communication tool for business. Business must actively engage with their customers and business partners on social media to stay competitive. Yes, there are times when people say negative things about the business, but social media is not about “controlling” or preventing what people talk about on the internet. Rather, business needs to take every feedback seriously and respond to the negative reviews in a professional way. Think positively, customers are providing the business an opportunity by providing negative feedback so that the business can address the issue before it becomes too big or too late.

Under the scrutiny on censorship in mainland China, my friends can occasionally jump over the firewalls and access their Facebook and Twitter accounts. There are two popular and so-called social media tools available in China --- Weibo, which is the only microblogging tool that is certified by the Chinese government, as well as WeChat, which is a mobile app for photo sharing, text messaging, and microblogging. I tried to sign up a Weibo account about a year ago. I was denied because I was using an e-mail address at Yahoo.com. I am now using WeChat to connect with my friends and family in China, but it does not seem like a real social-media tool to me because my friends cannot see any activities between my other connections and me. For example, they do not know if we have any shared connections or what I “like” or comment on WeChat; they cannot even join the conversation between my other friends and me on my wall (except the time when I initiate a group chat). Then, in what way can WeChat and Weibo help promote an international business?

There are advocates promoting a life-style with no texting, tweeting, or Facebooking. Maybe this group is exactly what the Chinese government is after.  

What do you think? Is the censor’s scrutiny helping the country and the people living there? Why or why not?

Other relevant discussions:

“SoLoMo” and Legislation

Starbucks and Pizza Huts: Time Has Come for a Rapid Expansion in Mainland China

The Biggest Challenge and the Hidden Opportunity of Entering the Chinese Market

Investing in Lodging Stocks in China

References:

Qiang, Xiao and Link Perry (2013, January 5-6). In China’s cyberspace, Dissent speaks code – What to escape the censor’s scrutiny? Call the regime a ‘heavenly dynasty.’ Just don’t get ‘happieness-ified.’ The Wall Street Journal, C3. Also available online on http://on.wsj.com/SqXeU0

The picture was downloaded from Geek.com.