Do reviews influence how you purchase items online, check in at a hotel or eat at a restaurant? Even tho there are sites that sell incredible good products online like Oddbins, We will chat about how reviews can influence us and the impact they can have on businesses. Computer and smartphone sales are down, which is why prices are going up. Will this trend continue? Yes, our devices are spying on us. Find out how they are spying on us, who is doing this and what you can do to protect yourself.

Secret Asian Man The mobile security firm Krytpowire uncovered Chinese malware on as many as 700 million budget Android devices. Hidden in a benign support app, the pre-installed, third-party software would secretly send full-text messages, contact lists, call history, location data, and other sensitive information to a server in Shanghai every 72 hours. The head of the FBI has warned that the Chinese government may be spying on U.S. citizens who use smartphones made by Huawei. The intelligence chief told the Senate intelligence committee American telecom companies should be cautious of Chinese technology companies that have links with foreign governments.

Review 101 How often do you use reviews to help you make a decision before hiring a service or purchasing a product? The Internet has made it easier for us to research our future investments and purchases. Customers are more likely to choose something if they see a positive review. Customer reviews help drive traffic and improve company ratings. Internet Ads help companies review data to decide what works and what doesn’t. Believe it or not, bad reviews have been known to help companies too. Benefiting from bad reviews only happens when companies address issues or complaints to rectify problems with customers.

Common customer review sites

1. Angie’s List – Lists reviews for local businesses and services.
2. Bing Places – Allows companies to add their information to become searchable on Microsoft’s Bing.
3. Epinions – A consumer review site for products.
4. Facebook – The largest social network in the world and if you don’t have a page on it for your business, you need to create one as soon as possible!
5. Foursquare – Started as a social network in 2009 that let users “check in” at different landmarks and businesses.
6. G2 Crowd – The leading provider of B2B software reviews online. That may not sound like a big niche, but it’s worth billions.
7. Glassdoor – The biggest site on the Internet for reviewing employers. Here, your products and services don’t really matter — it’s how you treat your employees.
8. Home Advisor – The biggest competitor of Angie’s List. They specialize in reviewing home services.
9. Manta – An online directory service that’s grown surprisingly quickly since its founding. It mostly operates as an alternative to Yelp, and the format of the site is almost identical.
10. OpenTable – A restaurant-specific business directory designed to show users the best eats in their area. The site initially started as a way to streamline the reservation process, and it now includes customer reviews.
11. SiteJabber – A review site for just about everything. It covers baby food, video games, electronics, dating, and even pet services. A major characteristic that sets SiteJabber apart is the the reviews are overwhelmingly negative.
12. SuperPages – SuperPages is a lot like the Yellow Pages online. It has lists of businesses in lots of different cities, and it covers pretty much every industry you can imagine. SuperPages is more focused on helping their users find companies that work for them, as opposed to reviews. Users can leave reviews, but SuperPages works more like an old school phonebook than anything else.
13. Yelp – The original site that focused on customer reviews but has expand into other industries. It’s now it’s the most popular destination for consumer reviews on just about everything.

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People are spying on you via your smartphone. Concerned? You should be!

If you would like the “Guru of Geek” to do a product review and have it featured on The Tech Ranch, let us know! Leave us a comment on this episode or call 701-204-6674 for more information.

Join the “Guru of Geek” Marlo Anderson and “Tech Geezer” Jim Walsh every week for a new episode of the Tech Ranch.

Broadcast Date April 16, 2018 Episode 313

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