The SiteJabber Blog » SiteJabber Updates

AOL’s Consumer Ally and SiteJabber Partner to Keep Consumers Informed

Jeremy Gin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 01:28:22 +0000

Mitch Lipka has a long history of high-quality consumer news reporting for venerable publications including Consumer Reports, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Boston Globe. Mitch now runs Consumer Ally, an excellent source for consumer news and part of AOL’s Walletpop consumer finance site.

Today, we announced a partnership with Consumer Ally to better inform consumers on both of our sites. Consumer Ally visitors will get access to SiteJabber reviews so they can check unfamiliar websites to avoid fraud right on the Consumer Ally site. And SiteJabber visitors will get headlines and links to the latest breaking news from Consumer Ally (you’ll see news updates on the right side of review pages). Consumer Ally’s articles cover everything from product recalls to misleading marketing schemes. In recognition of the quality of their journalism, in May of 2010, Mitch and Consumer Ally received a New York Press Club award for consumer reporting.

We hope you enjoy the content and look forward to bringing you more great information.

SiteJabber Named “Top 100 Website of 2010″ by PC Magazine

Jeremy Gin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 04:19:59 +0000

We’re excited to report that PC Magazine has named SiteJabber a “Top 100 Site of 2010.” There are also some other great sites in this list so it’s definitely worth a look.

SiteJabber & LegitScript Launch Partnership to Improve Transparency Around Online Pharmacies

Jeremy Gin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:11:45 +0000

When buying prescription drugs online, consumers are frequently faced with the nearly impossible task of determining the legality and trustworthiness of online pharmacies. Today, SiteJabber and LegitScript are announcing a partnership which should make it easier for consumers to find, research, and review legitimate online pharmacies.

LegitScript has vetted 50000+ online pharmacies and had identified nearly 350 legitimate pharmacies. SiteJabber visitors, when researching an online pharmacy, will not only be able to see consumer reviews, but they will now also be able to see whether LegitScipt has determined the site to be “legitimate” or “rogue.” LegitScript is the only service of its kind which uses Internet pharmacy verification standards recognized by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Also, importantly, to prevent conflicts of interest, LegitScript is wholly employee-owned and has no ownership or financial relationship with any of the pharmacies it vets (SiteJabber also does not receive any money from any of its partners or any of the websites reviewed on it to prevent conflicts of interest).

It is our hope and belief that the SiteJabber/LegitScript partnership will be an important step towards improving transparency around the the quality of online pharmacy websites and making the lives of consumers a little bit easier.

Link to official press release

Updated 4/10: Legitscript has also announced that it will be helping Google decide which online pharmacies are legit.

SiteJabber Launches Partnership with HON to Help Consumers Find Quality Health Websites

Jeremy Gin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:16:41 +0000

The deluge of health information and services moving online has been both a blessing and a curse for consumers. On one hand, consumers have access to high quality information on sites like the Diseases and Conditions Index of the National Institutes of Health and the Consumer Portal of the Mayo Clinic. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of websites have emerged offering information and services of dubious quality. Consumers are often left with the unfortunate choice of either relying on a handful of big name websites or taking a risk using an unknown site.

SiteJabber and Health on the Net Foundation (HON) would like to change this. Already, SiteJabber’s very proactive community has reviewed thousands of health websites, helping consumers learn from the good and bad experiences of their peers. HON is the most reputable and longest serving non-profit dedicated to the deployment of useful and reliable online medical information. HON’s expert staff certifies websites based on eight principles to ensure their quality for consumers. SiteJabber will now be publishing HON seals on all websites that have received that accreditation, allowing visitors to SiteJabber to see this information alongside our community’s reviews so consumers can have as much information as possible when making the decision to use a health website.

To see the official press release please go here or here.

The SiteJabber Firefox Plugin – Simple But Powerful Tool to Get Reviews While You Surf the Web

Jeremy Gin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:28:23 +0000

We at SiteJabber are excited about the recent release the SiteJabber plugin for Firefox. The plugin allows anyone to check for SiteJabber reviews on the site they’re viewing in their browser. We’ve designed the plugin to keep people better informed about websites while they’re using them, as well as encourage consumers to share their experiences with fellow consumers.

In the long run, we hope this plugin will make an important contribution to the improvement of transparency around the quality of websites and online businesses. Enjoy, and as always, let us know what you think!

Online Retailers and Differential Pricing – Consumers be Wary

Jeremy Gin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:59:30 +0000

The Times of London recently reported the UK’s Office of Fair Trading is investigating the differential pricing tactics of online retailers. Differential pricing typically involves retailers collecting information about their registered customers in order to determine a customer’s “willingness to pay” for a particular product or service. Based on that data the retailer may then charge certain customers more than others if the retailer believes the customer will still make the purchase at the higher price.

While the legality of such practices is unclear, (Amazon has been reported to do this as well) differential pricing leaves most consumers, at a minimum, with a bad taste in their mouth. A classic example of this was Coke’s plan to make vending machines that would charge different prices for sodas based on the ambient temperature, exploiting the idea that cold sodas are worth more to people when it’s warm outside. Unsurprisingly, many consumers did not take well to this and Coke abandoned the project.

For consumers, the most important issue here is likely transparency. If a website engages in differential pricing, consumers interacting with the site should be informed ex-ante – before they register or make a purchase. As it seems unlikely websites will do this voluntarily, it may be up to governments and watchdog groups to bring website pricing practices to the fore. Here on SiteJabber, perhaps some of our community members can do a bit of investigative research and see if we can’t root out and let consumers know about some of the sites that practice price discrimination.

Impact of Bad Reviews on Online Businesses and Websites

Jeremy Gin — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:33:04 +0000

Thousands of online businesses and websites have been reviewed on SiteJabber. While many reviews are positive, there are also the negative reviews – consumers who received defective merchandise, felt wronged by bad customer service, discovered that website content is inaccurate or deceptive, and so on. For businesses, even bad reviews can be helpful:

1) For every unhappy customer, a good website will have many times as many happy customers and this will eventually be reflected in the reviews on SiteJabber

2) Consumers are smart. They know even the best businesses and sites will have detractors, and they take negative reviews as just a single data point

3) Negative reviews can provide useful data for site owners to improve the services they provide, leading to more positive reviews, and eventually more business

This topic was covered recently in a piece by Forbes, which points out that bad reviews can help business owners improve products, build customer trust, and even properly set customer expectations as to reduce requests for refunds. So to all the online business and website owners out there, we ask for your patience. Even if you’ve had a few bad reviews which you consider unfair, if you run a good site, people will take notice, and you will win in the end.

SiteJabber in the News

Jeremy Gin — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:26:24 +0000

Last Tuesday, SiteJabber launched publicly. News coverage included social media blog Mashable as well as PC Magazine’s AppScout Blog.

The SiteJabber Launch

Jeremy Gin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:00:55 +0000

Today, we are proud to announce the public launch of SiteJabber. Our mission remains the same – to help consumers avoid fraudulent websites and find sites they will love. To accomplish this, we have developed what we believe to be two simple but powerful tools which allow consumers to:

Review online businesses and websites & report fraud

Research online businesses and websites

By reviewing good and bad websites, consumers can help each other to make better decisions about the websites they use and contribute to the creation of an internet with perfect transparency around the quality of online businesses and websites.

The Founding of SiteJabber

SiteJabber — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:05:33 +0000

In 2008, the fight against online fraud was becoming an increasingly uphill battle. With over 150 million websites on the Internet, more and more fraudulent websites were appearing and consumers were finding it increasingly difficult to determine which sites could help them and which sites could hurt them. Scammers enriched themselves at the expense of honest people, and annual damages from online fraud topped $100 billion.

Rodney Gin observed this first-hand as a frustrated consumer. Although a medical doctor, he was stymied when he needed to determine from which website he should order expensive medical equity for his clinic. Shocked at the lack of transparency around online businesses, he came up with a product idea that would later become SiteJabber. Rodney shared this with his cousin, Jeremy Gin, who had studied the intersection of technology and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Jeremy quickly recognized the significance of Rodney’s idea and the broader implications for the Internet and consumers. Jeremy then reached out to Michael Lai, a friend from Harvard who was a programmer and a product manager at Yahoo. Michael immediately saw the opportunity to build an innovative consumer product that would positively impact people’s lives.

Together, Rodney, Jeremy and Michael formed SiteJabber in 2008. With the goal of making a significant contribution to the fight against online fraud and the promotion of online transparency, the founders invested their savings and dedicated themselves to building a great product and attracting an impressive community of online consumer advocates.