This is part of the reason why I, with rare exception, I put very little stock in five-star reviews. Even when the reviews are real (and here I am thinking most specifically of Yelp), they often lack substance and discernment. Indeed, for all small businesses complain about Yelp, most of Yelp is a bunch of highly unreliable five-star reviews.
(Protip for interpreting Yelp reviews: In my experience, because of the extreme positive bias of Yelp reviews, if a business has, say, over 80 Yelp reviews, and the average of its reviews is less than four stars, it probably totally sucks It takes a LOT to get those five-starrers to go below five or four stars..)
Instead, I'll look at the negative reviews -- starting at the worst first -- and read them carefully. That's where all the problems are pointed out, and then I can see how often people complain of the same problem, as well as make an assessment as to how much the problems might bother me.
Indeed, I've even decided to patronize a business based on the negative reviews, because I determined that, although the complaints of the business probably accurately reflected that business, those particular shortcomings wouldn't bother me personally.
Similarly, I've decided to avoid a business based on its positive reviews by reading them and determining that the things the positive reviewer(s) liked about that business are things I would hate.
The best approach for consumers, although this isn't always possible, is to follow specific reviewers. If someone has published a series of reviews, which have turned out to be reliable, then you can develop a degree of trust.
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Businesses often struggle to decide which domain to use. When it comes to purchasing a domain name, you have plenty of extensions to choose from, ranging from .com and .net, to .me, and even .mobi. But which one should you pick?
I've been writing about how the next evolution of the Internet might just be an advertising revolution, and how corporate IT can stay involved as the enablers and providers of the technologies that make this possible.
In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.
The smartphone market reached a significant milestone, a breakthrough that may cause vendors to celebrate but could strain the capabilities of IT service desks.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
