Location based platforms

   

    There are so many great apps and websites and other technologies out there that connect us to people all across the world, other cities, states, countries and even continents are just seconds away, or less! There are amazing amounts of power to influence people whose face we may never even see.


  This is not the topic of my post today, I want to talk about the location based platforms we have out there and the one I specifically want to talk about doesn't have a ton to do with connecting people across the world, although it technically could, I am talking more about the very locals effects of our favorite online review platform, Google Reviews.


   It really is great, especially in a college town like the one I live in. What is so great? The ability to get very open opinions about all of the most popular places in town make your weekends, holidays, free time and crunch time all that much smoother and easier to handle. Google reviews seems to have at least one review for anywhere worth researching before going. When my wife and I are looking for a pizza place in town or in a different town we can connect to the people of that city or those who have visited that city with some great feedback and quick restaurant checking. After all the signs that claim their restaurant has the world's best pizza we start to catch onto the fact that not everyone can have the best pizza, but Google Reviews lets us know the better places in at least one town.


 The sad truth however is that it isn't the perfect system. As Tom Forrest mentions in his article there are a number of problems with Google Reviews and one of which is the idea of fake reviews. There could be countless reasons for these fake review but some of the biggest reasons are obvious. It would make sense to write a fake very positive review for my own company, and the smarter people wouldn't log in with their own name. Another might be wanting to give negative feedback to a competing company and starting rumors that otherwise wouldn't exist.

 Obviously the power or lack of power through Google Reviews in generally fluctuating depending on the individual, but how does it affect a small business on the flip side of the coin? It would make sense that all of this positive feedback could help a small business grow. There is a problem as pointed out by Olsy Sorokina writing about this same subject. The problem is that people are starting to trust their friends more that online reviews. There seems to be a problem Google... your move.