Month: March 2016

What are your thoughts about the credibility or quality of user reviews?

It is desirable to make the right choice of products or services, in order to feel satisfied and to avoid wasting money and time. Travelling can be an expensive enterprise requiring a lot of organisation. Access to free reviews on a site such as Tripadvisor is a good resource, as long as one approaches these reviews with a degree of common sense, and does not rely solely upon user reviews to make a decision.

An important factor relating to credibility and quality of reviews, is identifying the author and their motivation for writing the review. McIntyre, McQuarrie & Shanmugam (2015) suggest that authors of online reviews, particularly regular contributors, are not writing for reward, monetary or otherwise, but are in fact writing out of a desire to have published material in a place where a large audience, not just one’s Facebook friends, are likely to read it (p. 12). Judging by the 65% of travelers researching online before travelling (Collie, as cited in Fang, Ye, Kucukusta, & Law, 2016, p. 498) , the readership is indeed there. If writing for publication, not reward, the majority of reviews are more likely to be honest and aim to be helpful, making them a decent place to find information to influence decision making, as long as the possibility of fake reviews, both positive and negative, is taken into consideration.

Could they be used as good evidence of the quality of services or products?

The helpfulness ratings used by Tripadvisor, allowing the reader to rate the review, is an excellent feature which greatly helps reviews to be used as good evidence for quality of a product or service. Not only does this rating ability help readers choose which reviews to read but also provides product and service managers an opportunity to address issues found in reviews that are affecting customer choices (Fang et al, 2016, p. 499). Fang et al. is of the opinion that reviews could be particularly important for attractions (compared to hotels and restaurants) as a pointless attraction can ruin an entire trip, where a bad meal may not (p. 499). However, I do think that attractions can also be a very subjective thing for each traveler, as different people find enjoyment in different things but no one really likes bad chicken or cockroaches in a hotel room!

Personally, I like to read online reviews in conjunction with speaking to people I know who may have been to the location or used the product or service. Reviews also are better evidence if there is a good number of reviews and reading a selection of them provides a similar picture. I also take into account my own preferences for accommodation requirements, travel experiences and food choices. Some people are pickier than others! In short, you never know until you go!

How do you think about charging customers for leaving bad reviews on Tripadvisor?

This is just terrible business. Far better to fix the problems identified by the reviewer, if the complaints are reasonable. Charging them just makes your product or service look even worse and that information will get out there somehow. There is very little hiding to be done in today’s socially networked environment!

References

Fang, B., Ye, Q., Kucukusta, D., & Law, R. (2016). Analysis of the perceived value of online tourism  reviews: Influence of readability and reviewer characteristics. Tourism Management, 52 (February),  498-506. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2015.07.018

McIntyre, S. H., McQuarrie, E. F., & Shanmugam, R. (2015). How online reviews create social network  value: The role of feedback versus individual motivation. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 1-16.  doi:10.1080/0965254X.2015.1095218

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 refers to services that use the web as a platform (instead of software dependent upon the device operating system), and encourage and benefit from social collaboration and user contributions (O’Reilly, 2005). A key term commonly used when defining Web 2.0 is user-generated content (O’Reilly; Schwerdtfeger, 2013; “Web 2.0,” n.d) This indicates that if a technology has no capability for user information creation and contribution, it is not a Web 2.0 technology. Primary examples of Web 2.0 include YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and blogs, although it could be said that nearly every website worth its salt now incorporates Web 2.0 components, such as comments, ratings, reviews and even clickable ads.

Web 2.0 is now completely ingrained into our web experience. It was interesting reading through the 2005 O’Reilly article, one of the earliest articles that aimed to provide a cohesive definition of Web 2.0, as it felt quite dated. A quick google search confirmed my suspicion that the article was written before the release of the first smartphone, the iPhone 1st generation, in 2007.

I believe that smartphones have done much to fully incorporate Web 2.0 into our lives as an everyday tool. Reading the 2009 O’Reilly article helped to better understand why this is so and gave a nice update to the original article. Essentially we now carry the Web around with us. This fact and the continual uploading of a variety of content by many users make it a readily accessible and current source of information, connection, business and entertainment. In short,  “the Web is now the world” (Battelle & O’Reilly, 2009).

Web 2.0 is now such a part of everyday tasks it is almost useless to speculate on life without it. It is intrinsic to the creation, categorisation and distribution of much of today’s information, particularly to the younger generations that we need to reach as part of information organisations. In addition, even those that feel most disconnected in the physical world invariably find connections online. This information sharing, connected reality is fast-paced, overwhelming and sometimes, it feels, completely full of nonsense that we shouldn’t really be wasting our time with, such as celebrity selfies or posting about change rather than making any. However, if the pitfalls can be successfully navigated, web 2.0 provides endless possibilities for marketing, collaboration, discovery, connecting with the community and more. As I delve further into this subject I am looking forward to learning more about the possibilities and how to take advantage of them.

References

Battelle, J, & O’Reilly, T. (2009). Web squared: Web 2.0 five years on. Retrieved from    http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/public/schedule/detail/10194Battelle

O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business modules for the next generation of software. Retrieved from http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

Schwerdtfeger, P. (2013, March 17). What is web 2.0? What is social media? What comes next?? [Video  file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iStkxcK6_vY

Web 2.0. (n.d). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 15, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

What is Social Networking?

Social networking, in my own words, is the application of online websites and tools that allow global users to connect with one another and share information, ideas and experiences in many different formats, including words, images and videos.

A primary activity of social media sites or tools is that they enable and encourage online interaction between users to make comments and hold conversations, collaborate to create new ideas and information, and form a community of common interest. These social interactions can take place between people known to the user, members of a community, celebrities, strangers, and anonymous identities.

Social networking technologies I already use:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Facebook Messenger
• Youtube

Most of these are for personal use, however I do use Facebook extensively in a professional capacity as well.

Learning expectations:

Throughout this subject I am interested in gaining an overview of a range of different social networking tools, and some exposure to new ones that I have not used before (this has already happened with Diigo, which I am finding to be an excellent resource).

I am also interested to learn how social networking can be used most effectively in the professional information environment. As an avid user of social media, I can appreciate the unique opportunities social media presents to the professional environment, but am interested in learning more about how to maximise the tools, so that time spent by staff on social media most adequately meets organisational outcomes and addresses the needs of the community using the service, and so becomes an integral part of the service as opposed to just decoration or a one-sided communication.