For the greater part of this past summer, I wore six smart rings at once. I wanted to see which was best, and the Oura Ring Gen 3 was the clear winner. Well, it’s been about two weeks since my experiment ended, and there’s now a new winner: the Oura Ring 4.
Technology
European cyber insurance startup Stoïk secures $27 million
Cyber risk has become an increasingly important issue for small companies around the world. While many companies try to avoid and mitigate cyber risks, they rarely discuss transferring those risks to a third party.
That’s why Stoïk is stepping in with a cyber insurance product specifically designed for small and medium-sized businesses. The French startup recently raised a €25 million Series B round (around $27 million at current exchange rates).
In many ways, Stoïk follows in the footsteps of Coalition or At-Bay. However, instead of selling its insurance products to U.S.-based companies, Stoïk focuses exclusively on European companies.
Once insured by Stoïk, businesses receive coverage in the event of a cybersecurity-related claim. For instance, if a company needs to halt production or temporarily close due to a cyber incident, Stoïk can compensate for loss of revenue (gross operating margin) during that period.
Stoïk currently covers companies with an annual turnover of €750 million or less with coverage limits of €7.5 million. At present, the company operates in France, Germany and Austria.
The startup chose this particular vertical because cyber insurance is more complex than other types of insurance products. For instance, Stoïk has built a small in-house crisis management team to respond to incidents and assist with data recovery and crisis communication.
“Since the beginning of the week, we’ve had a dozen attacks on our portfolio, including a major one,” co-founder and CEO Jules Veyrat told TechCrunch last week. “We have people mobilized in the Lyon region for a ransomware attack that brought an industrial company to a standstill.”
When customers sign up, they receive an overview of their cyber risk exposure. The startup monitors DNS records and scans online databases for password leaks associated with this domain name. Stoïk can also perform internal scans to recommend changes to cloud and active directory configurations.
“Our thesis is that we’re going to insure companies. On top of that, we’re going to help them better protect themselves against cyberattacks. That way, they’re happy, they get more for the same price. And we’re happy, because we have policyholders who are well protected, and therefore have fewer claims than others,” Veyrat said.
There are still some similarities with the insurance industry at large. Like other insurance companies, Stoïk has to ensure it doesn’t accept too many bad apples in its portfolio of clients, as this could significantly impact the company’s loss ratio.
“The insurers’ job is to select the risk. So, who do I accept and under what conditions? How well do they understand cyber?” Veyrat said. “In other words, am I willing to take on a €50 million industrial company that has no offline backup strategy? This is just an example, but these are the questions we ask ourselves every day.”
Stoïk acts as Managing General Agent (MGA), meaning that it works with insurance and reinsurance companies so that they cover the risks. Stoïk gets to create its own rates, products and policies — but it outsources the risk to bigger insurance companies.
One such partner is Tokio Marine HCC International, which is the only new investor in the Series B funding round. The rest of the round is made of existing investors. Alven is leading the Series B with Andreessen Horowitz, Munich Re Ventures, Opera Tech Ventures and Anthemis also participating.
Stoïk doesn’t sell its insurance products to its customers directly. Instead, it works with third-party insurance brokers that already have a relationship with SMBs. So far, Stoïk has attracted 1,000 insurance brokers.
By the end of 2024, Stoïk should have 5,000 policyholders. It represents €25 million in premiums. Stoïk plans to ramp up customer signups in the future. In the future, the startup expects to expand into a new country every year starting with a first new European market in late 2024 or early 2025.
Science & Environment
Kamala Harris got $1 million from Ripple’s Chris Larsen, crypto warms
Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple.
Source: YouTube
SAN FRANCISCO — For months, crypto companies and their executives have been pouring tens of millions of dollars into Donald Trump’s effort to win the White House. Chris Larsen isn’t one of them.
The co-founder and chairman of Ripple recently contributed $1 million worth of XRP tokens, the currency created by Ripple in 2012, to Future Forward, a super PAC that’s supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
Larsen, who’s backed candidates across the aisle for the last few years, told CNBC in an interview on Monday that his comfort level with Harris comes from conversations he’s had with people inside the campaign and what he’s seen from the vice president since she replaced President Biden at the top of the ticket in July.
It helps that Harris is from the Bay Area.
“She knows people who have grown up in the innovation economy her whole life,” Larsen said. “So I think she gets it at a fundamental level, in a way that I think the Biden folks were just not paying attention to, or maybe just didn’t make the connection between empowering workers and making sure you have American champions dominating their industries.”
Larsen’s affection for the Democratic nominee isn’t brand new. In February, he gave the maximum personal contribution of $6,600 to Harris (which would cover the primary and general election), about five months before she became the Democratic presidential nominee, FEC filings show. At the same time, he contributed $100,000 to the Harris Action Fund PAC.
In total, Larsen has given around $1.9 million to support Harris’ campaign directly and through PACs, according to FEC data compiled by crypto market and blockchain analyst James Delmore and independently verified by CNBC.
Larsen, 64, has a net worth of $3.1 billion, according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership of XRP and involvement in Ripple, which provides blockchain technology for financial services companies.
He’s part of an industry that’s become suddenly prominent in political fundraising, though more heavily in support of Republicans. Nearly half of all the corporate money flowing into the election has come from the crypto industry, according to a recent report from the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen.
Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she arrives at Erie International Airport ahead of a campaign rally, in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 14, 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
The sum was raised from a mix of contributors, with Coinbase, Ripple, and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz accounting for most of those business donations. The industry has raised roughly 13 times the amount it brought in during the last presidential election year.
Close to two-thirds of crypto contributions have gone either to supporting Republicans or opposing Democrats, according to Delmore’s compilation of FEC data. Trump has received more than $4 million in virtual tokens, an FEC filing shows, and in July, the ex-president keynoted a major bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
‘More pragmatic approach’
Larsen’s recent contributions include $1 million to Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in December, and almost $7,000 in February to John Deaton, the Massachusetts Republican who’s taking on Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a vocal crypto critic. He also donated $250,000 in 2022 to the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund and contributed to a pro-Biden PAC in 2020.
Larsen told CNBC that he’s “really confident” that Harris will bring a “more pragmatic approach and clear rules” to the crypto industry, in contrast to the current situation with Gary Gensler running the SEC. Gensler’s open hostility towards much of the crypto industry and his aggressive crackdowns on companies, including Ripple, is a big reason why many in the space say they’re supporting Trump.
In January, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who has also donated to members of both parties, called Gensler a “political liability.”
“What we’ve had to date has been almost like purposeful chaos by Gensler to kind of crush the domestic industry,” Larsen said. That “has only empowered sketchier foreign operations. It just doesn’t make any sense,” he said, adding that “Gensler must be the most unpopular person in Washington, D.C.”
CNBC reached out to Gensler’s office for comment and didn’t hear back.
Ripple’s legal chief said in June that the company has spent over $100 million on litigation to defend itself against civil charges brought by the SEC. In 2020, before Biden took office, the SEC accused Ripple, Garlinghouse and Larsen of violating securities laws by acting as unregistered brokers of digital currency tokens, which the SEC regulates as securities. The SEC later dismissed the charges against the two Ripple executives, and the company has denied it broke securities laws. They remain in active litigation.
Earlier this month, the agency filed a notice of appeal in its multi-year case with the Ripple.
Ripple has given about $50 million to the pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake, which has been contributing to candidates up and down the ballot, and on both sides of the aisle.
Harris has been gaining momentum within the crypto community.
Two days after Biden dropped out of the race, Marvin Ammori, legal chief at decentralized exchanged Uniswap, gave money to the Harris Action Fund. Uniswap is also battling claims it violated U.S. securities laws.
Skybridge Capital’s Anthony Scaramucci, who spent 11 days as White House communications director under Trump, has given more than $36,000 to two PACs supporting the Democratic nominee. Scaramucci says he’s among a group of crypto advocates working with Harris to develop her campaign’s policies on digital assets and to help the vice president distance the Democrats from Sen. Warren.
And then there’s venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, who maintains a sizable portfolio of crypto companies. The Andreessen Horowitz co-founder and his partner Marc Andreessen said in July they were planning to make significant donations to PACs supporting Trump’s run for president due to what they characterized as his friendliness to the “little tech agenda.”
That was when Biden was the nominee. By early October, Horowitz appeared to have had a change of heart. He told employees at his firm that he would be making a “significant” personal contribution to Harris’ election bid. Horowitz said that he and his wife, Felicia, “have known Vice President Harris for over 10 years and she has been a great friend to both of us during that time.”
A couple weeks earlier, in late September, Harris finally gave a nod to cryptocurrency in a public address.
“We will encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors,” she said at a $27 million fundraiser in New York.
On Monday, the Harris campaign unveiled its “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” in a report. The plan explicitly mentions creating a framework for cryptocurrency in the U.S. designed to safeguard those assets. The campaign said more than 20% of Black Americans own or have owned digital currencies.
Despite Larsen’s track record of donating to Democrats, he took heat on social media after his latest contribution was reported on CNBC on Friday.
“The Ripple community and even the crypto community in general has a lot of skepticism toward Kamala’s candidacy and what policies she would put into place,” Delmore said, reflecting much of the online sentiment
Larsen blew off the criticism, and said he doesn’t pay attention to social media.
Technology
Oura Ring 4 review: still on top — for now
Oura has been the top dog in smart rings for the past decade. Sure, there’s been a smart ring renaissance this year, but its rivals are mostly either just getting into the game or launching a second version. This is the fourth Oura Ring. Oura has spent years collaborating with researchers and conducting its own studies. It’s the most readily available at third-party retail stores in the US; it’s the one wellness influencers keep flaunting in TikToks; and it’s seen on the fingers of A-list celebrities. In response to increased competition, Oura has launched half a dozen new features in the past 12 months. And now, Oura is closing out 2024 with several hardware and software refinements.
The Oura Ring 4 extends the company’s lead over the competition. The question is how long Oura can maintain it when its rivals cost less, eschew subscriptions, and have started innovating in new directions.
Slightly better in every way
Wearing the Oura Ring 4 is better than the Gen 3. Just not by much.
The Oura Gen 2 and Gen 3 rings had resin interiors with domed sensor bumps. The fourth-gen ring is made entirely of titanium, and the inside is flatter, with recessed sensors. It might not seem like it, but this is impressive engineering for a device so small. Compared to titanium, the resin in older rings diffused light from the sensors in a less precise way. Since rings naturally rotate during the day, it’s also easy for those sensors to move out of proper alignment. That’s partly why the previous Oura Rings had raised sensor bumps — they ensured good skin contact to mitigate those factors.
This time around, Oura’s introduced a new Smart Sensing algorithm that increases the number of sensor signal pathways from eight to 18. The sensors are placed asymmetrically to allow for a variety of distances and measurements. Basically, it now matters less if your ring rotates and better accounts for the fact that everyone’s fingers are different. This also means you don’t need those sensor bumps anymore.
My brain appreciates all the engineering sweat and tears that went into making this possible. Technologically speaking, Oura is flexing on its rivals. But practically speaking, it means close to diddly squat for the average wearer. Ninety-nine percent of the time, wearing the Oura Ring 4 felt the same as the Oura Ring Gen 3 and the Gen 2 before that. The only time I noticed a difference was when I felt bloated. I have knobby knuckles, and the sensor bumps on older Oura Rings could be painful when trying to take the ring off. It was a relief to not have that problem this time around.
Design-wise, this all-titanium ring is nice but not dramatically different from other premium options like the Samsung Galaxy Ring or the Ultrahuman Ring Air. You’ll notice more of a difference if you’re coming from older Oura models with flat or angled tops. All of the fourth-gen rings are fully round. This isn’t new — Oura introduced fully round versions of the Gen 3 in 2022 — but I’ve found it to be more comfortable. If you are mulling an upgrade, I highly recommend trying the new sizing kit first. I was a size 8 in the old rings, and now I’m a size 9. Plus, Oura’s size range has four new options, spanning sizes 4 to 15. If you were previously a size 6 or 13, you may find one of the newer sizes fits you better.
Another improvement: battery life. You can now get up to seven or eight days on a single charge. I’ve been able to get about 6.5 days, even with the power-guzzling blood oxygen sensing feature enabled. With a Gen 3, I got three to four days. Again, your mileage will vary depending on ring size. (Larger size, larger battery.) This is a significant bump, though I did get longer with the first-gen RingConn and from the Samsung Galaxy Ring when it was paired with a smartwatch.
Speaking of battery, Oura’s updated the charging dock. It’s larger, metal, and looks sleeker than previous docks. Unfortunately, my hangry cat had no problems knocking it off my nightstand. I wish Oura had opted for a more convenient charging case like many of its rivals, but alas. Maybe next time.
Software and science
Oura’s hardware isn’t that much better than the competition. I maintain the Galaxy Ring’s concave shape is more comfortable, and its charging case more convenient. The Evie Ring’s open-gap design is also fetching and clever for those of us prone to bloating. But where Oura trounces everyone else is software and its commitment to science, both in conducting and communicating it.
Let’s start with software. The app has had a much-needed redesign. Oura released several new features and metrics in the past year, turning the dashboard into a cluttered mess. Now everything’s been streamlined into three tabs: Today, Vitals, and My Health.
The Today tab contains shortcuts to specific metrics, a timeline of all your daily activity, and cards that highlight different things (e.g., sleep score, readiness, etc) depending on the time of day. Vitals is where you’ll find all your metrics, albeit in a more digestible format. My Health is where you’ll find longer-term health trends and reports. All redesigns take a hot second to adjust to, but overall, I’ve found this to be a helpful reorganization.
Another needed improvement: automatic activity detection has been expanded to 40 activities. (Oura lists roughly 30 of them here.) This makes the ring a much better standalone activity tracker, especially since enabling location permissions will also generate automatic GPS route maps. It’s flexible for smartwatch users, too. I typically don’t track walks on my smartwatch, but Oura picked them up easily. Start and end times, as well as the route maps, were also accurate. Conversely, I much prefer to record my runs and strength sessions with a smartwatch. For those instances, Oura prioritizes manually tracked or imported activities so I didn’t have to worry about duplicate activity records.
For tracking, Oura cites an external study saying the new Smart Sensing algorithm supports a significant bump in accuracy for signal quality, blood oxygen, and breathing disturbance detection. It also claims users should see fewer occurrences of heart rate data gaps both during the day and at night.
It’s impossible for a single reviewer to definitively test these claims. The general consensus is that consumer-grade wearable sleep tracking is broadly accurate at the basics but should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. All I can tell you is what I experienced in my own testing. The Oura Ring 4’s sleep and wake times align with my own manual testing logs. I still saw occasional gaps in nighttime heart rate, though it’s hard to say after only two weeks whether there were fewer or greater than before. My heart rate metrics, however, were all on par with my smartwatches — which is a good thing. Step counts and calorie estimates can be inflated compared to smartwatches, but that’s been true of every smart ring I’ve tested. What I can say for Oura, however, is its measurements are consistent and its margin of error is on the smaller side. After years of testing wearables, I trust the Oura Ring’s measurements for sleep and recovery tracking — in fact, I use it as a control for evaluating the sleep tracking features of other devices.
A big reason for that is this is a heavily studied device. For example, a recently published peer-reviewed study compared the accuracy of its sleep algorithm to the Apple Watch Series 8 and Fitbit Sense 2. Oura’s algorithm was found to be 5 percent more accurate than the Apple Watch and 10 percent more than Fitbit at detecting sleep stages. You should take all studies, including this one, with a healthy dose of skepticism. Not all studies or meta reviews are created equal, and one of the researchers here is a member of Oura’s medical advisory board. That said, Oura has also consistently made an effort to partner with outside researchers to validate its results for years. It also has a record of publishing these weeds-y findings, even if the results are not the most exciting. You see this from big companies like Apple, Samsung, and Google, but it’s much rarer from smaller companies in niche wearable spaces.
All these things together give Oura the edge among smart rings. The app is polished, I never have to think twice about syncing, the company puts immense effort into continually improving accuracy, and it’s had frequent feature updates in the past year. I’ve no doubt Oura’s competitors will start catching up here. Samsung and Ultrahuman aren’t too far off. But for now, Oura is the one to beat.
The elephant in the room
The weird thing about the Oura Ring 4 is it’s the best smart ring you can get right now. I also think most people don’t need to upgrade.
The hardware experience isn’t drastically different. Oura also won’t gatekeep any of these new software updates or the app redesign to the newest ring. That’s great! But it means there’s little incentive for folks with a Gen 3 to upgrade unless their battery is toast, especially since the starting price has increased to $350, and there doesn’t seem to be a trade-in program. (Current Oura members can get a 10 percent discount, but that’s it.) Really, the Oura Ring 4 is best for new users or people who previously couldn’t find a size that fit them.
For those folks, it’s a matter of whether you can stomach the Oura Ring’s single biggest con: the $6 monthly / $70 annual subscription. I don’t see a point in trying to justify its subscription. You’ll either think everything Oura’s brought to the table is worth it, or you won’t. If you’re the latter, fair enough. My take is that the Oura Ring is worth it if sleep tracking and recovery are your top priorities. Otherwise, a smartwatch is a better investment.
This is and will continue to be Oura’s greatest obstacle. It’s got a substantial lead in this space, but its rivals have made a point of eschewing subscriptions. Samsung, in particular, has large coffers and interesting ideas about how smart rings should interact with other gadgets like phones and smartwatches. For instance, the Galaxy Ring has gesture controls for the Galaxy phone’s camera and gets longer battery life when used with a Galaxy Watch. If Apple comes out with a smart ring, it’ll be a dark day at Oura headquarters. Meanwhile, smaller rivals like RingConn can undercut Oura’s price, even if the tracking is more basic.
Oura is betting that the best is worth paying for. It’s a gambit that will probably hold so long as everyone else is playing catch-up. But ask anyone who races: it’s hard to maintain a lead forever.
Science & Environment
WTI, Brent fall more than 4%
Crude oil futures fell more than 4% on Tuesday, as a looming global oil surplus next year overshadowed the risk of a supply disruption from the conflict between Israel and Iran.
Oil prices spiked earlier this month after Iran hit Israel with a ballistic missile attack, raising fears that Israel would respond by targeting the Islamic Republic’s oil facilities.
The International Energy Agency said Tuesday that its members are prepared to take action if there is a supply disruption in the Middle East.
“For now, supply keeps flowing, and in the absence of a major disruption, the market is faced with a sizeable surplus in the new year,” the IEA said in its monthly report.
Here are today’s energy prices around 5:30 am ET:
- West Texas Intermediate November contract: $70.28 per barrel, down $3.55, or 4.9%. Year to date, U.S. crude oil has fallen 2%.
- Brent December contract: $73.81 per barrel, down $3.65, or 4.8%. Year to date, the global benchmark has declined about 4%.
- RBOB Gasoline November contract: $2.0197 per gallon, down 4.2%. Year to date, gasoline has pulled back nearly 4%.
- Natural Gas November contract: $2.465 per thousand cubic feet, down 1.16%. Year to date, gas has fallen nearly 2%.
World oil demand is expected to grow by just under 900,000 barrels per day in 2024 and 1 million bpd in 2025, a significant slowdown compared to growth of 2 million bpd in post-pandemic period, according to the IEA.
Chinese oil demand is particularly weak, with consumption dropping by 500,000 bpd in August, the fourth monthly decline in a row, according to the agency. Meanwhile, crude production in the Americas, led by the U.S., is poised to grow by 1.5 million bpd this year and next, the IEA said.
OPEC has cut its oil 2024 forecast for the third consecutive month in a row.
Technology
Casio launches AI-powered furry robot pet that wants to replace your dog
Casio’s AI-powered robot pet, Moflin, is now available to preorder in Japan, ushering in the start of a dystopian pet-owner future where you send your furry partner to Casio’s repair center rather than take it to the vet.
Moflin looks like a large Guinea pig, without the mouth, or as Audio Editor, Becky Scarrott puts it, “a Porg from Star Wars, but horizontal.” It’s intended to be held and cuddled, bringing you the emotional connection you’d get with a pet, without the responsibility of looking after a living being.
Moflin was initially developed by Vanguard Industries, first coming to TechRadar’s attention at CES 2021. Now, Casio is manufacturing and distributing the furry friend across Japan for 59,400 yen (roughly $400 / £305 / 600AU$). Moflin will start shipping on November 7th and comes with an optional subscription service to cover any repairs, including a fur replacement.
Casio’s Moflin launch trailer shows a woman interacting with the fluffy robot throughout her day, cuddling with it in bed and even letting it sit on the dinner table as she eats – either a lonely vision of the future or the dream emotional support animal.
Moflin’s official website says, “Just like a living animal, Moflin possesses emotional capabilities and movements that evolve through daily interactions with its environment.” The robot will also “develop its own unique personality and as it gets attached to you”, making your Moflin unique to the experiences it has encountered.
Just like a real pet, Moflin will be happy when you spend time playing and loving it, but ignore the AI-powered fluff ball and it’ll get stressed and anxious, longing for love. You’ll not be able to tell from its body language, though, Moflin’s state of mind is only visible through an app, which seems a bit too robotic for my liking.
Casio says Moflin has a 5-hour battery life on a single charge, slightly less than my French Bulldog Kermit’s 24-hour runtime. If you need to boost its power, Moflin sits in a cute charging bed and requires a 3-and-a-half-hour power boost to help with your emotional well-being again.
Moflin feels like the TikTok generation’s Tamagotchi, but just like in the 90s, digital pets can only go so far. Part of being a pet owner is loving and caring for something that completely relies on you, I’m not sure a notification to say Moflin needs charging is quite the same.
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Technology
NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Tuesday, October 15
Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.
Like Wordle, Connections, and the Mini Crossword, Strands can be a bit difficult to solve some days. There’s no shame in needing a little help from time to time. If you’re stuck and need to know the answers to today’s Strands puzzle, check out the solved puzzle below.
How to play Strands
You start every Strands puzzle with the goal of finding the “theme words” hidden in the grid of letters. Manipulate letters by dragging or tapping to craft words; double-tap the final letter to confirm. If you find the correct word, the letters will be highlighted blue and will no longer be selectable.
If you find a word that isn’t a theme word, it still helps! For every three non-theme words you find that are at least four letters long, you’ll get a hint — the letters of one of the theme words will be revealed and you’ll just have to unscramble it.
Every single letter on the grid is used to spell out the theme words and there is no overlap. Every letter will be used once, and only once.
Each puzzle contains one “spangram,” a special theme word (or words) that describe the puzzle’s theme and touches two opposite sides of the board. When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted yellow.
The goal should be to complete the puzzle quickly without using too many hints.
Hint for today’s Strands puzzle
Today’s theme is “Beast mode”
Here’s a hint that might help you: aspects of a monster
Today’s Strand answers
Today’s spanagram
We’ll start by giving you the spangram, which might help you figure out the theme and solve the rest of the puzzle on your own:
Today’s Strands answers
- HAIR
- HORN
- TAIL
- WING
- SCALE
- SHELL
- FEATHER
Technology
How online reviews shape the success of digital services in the tech era
We live in a digital era where technological interventions are at the core of society. These shape our everyday life and have become an integral part of a functioning society. Activities and services which used to be based on in-person features are now striving in the digital realm, influencing everything from the products we buy and the services we choose. As more and more products and services have embraced online technology, so has consumer behavior.
One massive online trend among consumers has been to rely on online reviews for a critical lens to navigate products and services online. Consumers leverage these reviews to assess services before making a commitment, and this consumer behavior encompasses all types of online activities, from online shopping platforms and cloud computing services to online casinos and gaming platforms. For operators and companies, reviews can be leveraged to enhance visibility, drive engagement, and also improve user experiences.
The influence of online reviews
The influence which online reviews hold cannot be overstated. Online review statistics show that in 2024, 95% of consumers said they read Google reviews before purchasing or engaging with a service online, which is an increase compared to 2020 when it was just 63% of consumers that read the site’s reviews. For Trustpilot, 89% of global consumers check online reviews as part of their buying journey. The prominence of review sites like Google, Yelp, Trustpilot, and specialized platforms are crucial for businesses, especially those operating in the tech space, since these reviews are the first touchpoint for customers with the brand.
Reviews are not only crucial for product-based businesses, since they also extend into service-oriented industries. These for example include software-as-a-service (SaaS), IT solutions, and online casinos. Take the online casino industry as an example: Reviews in the online casino industry are significant, since the market is highly competitive. Casinos therefore rely on user reviews in building trust and attracting new players.
The special case of online casino reviews
As already teased previously, online casinos are a prime example of how reviews can either make or break a business. The gambling industry has migrated to digital platforms, and as a result, players are now relying on online reviews to choose where to gamble. As the variety of online casino platforms continues to grow, market competitiveness increases, and the large variety becomes overwhelming for consumers. This is where online casino review sites like Casinostugan is crucial for players to compare and contrast the services and game selections of various casino platforms.
Unlike traditional e-commerce, where it is somewhat simple to assess product quality, online casinos are also subject to scrutiny regarding fairness, payout speed, customer support, and the level of security. This is why players turn to review platforms like Casinostugan to compare and contrast opportunities. For operators, maintaining a positive reputation on such platforms is critical to attract and retain players. Many casino operators therefore actively manage reviews, respond to feedback, and address negative comments transparently, in an attempt to create a trustworthy brand image.
How online reviews impact conversions
Research also found that online reviews have a direct impact on sales. Statistics shows that product pages featuring reviews achieve a higher conversion rate and more revenue per visitor compared to pages without reviews. This pattern goes across various industries, also for tech-based services. Whether it being for cloud storage, cybersecurity tools, or casino platforms, reviews can drive customer action as it provides social proof.
An interesting aspect is that a large number of reviews, even if they include some negative feedback, can still enhance credibility. This is because the average customer expects a balanced mix of reviews, resulting in users trusting platforms more when both positive and negative reviews are present. This added authenticity helps customers make more informed decisions.
How business leverage reviews for tech-based services
As much as reviews have many great features for consumers, so is it a tool for businesses to leverage as well. Online reviews have a power which businesses with tech-based services can harness, but this requires a strategic approach.
By seeing customer reviews as an endless source of opportunities, companies can improve their approach to customers, and how to meet changing consumer demands. Reviews does contain a lot of information that can be translated into tangible and feasible actions by any tech-based business.
Encouraging user feedback
For any business that wants to leverage reviews for improving services and products, it is crucial to encourage customers to leave reviews. There are various ways to achieve this through various channels such as email campaigns, social media, and during interactions with customer service. Most users are willing to provide feedback, with 70% of consumers saying they would be willing to leave a review if asked to do so.
Asking for feedback also entails doing it at the right moment. This can for example be after a service has been provided or when a milestone has been reached, since this can help the businesses increase the volume of reviews while also maintaining a steady influx of fresh testimonials.
Responding to reviews
One item that should be key in a strategy for leveraging reviews is responsiveness. For consumers, the interest is not just in reading reviews, but also to see how companies actively engage with feedback. More than half of consumers (53%) expect a reply to negative reviews, and 89% of consumers are more likely to use a business that reply to reviews.
However, it is not all companies that realize these potentials of responding to reviews. Statistics show that 87% of businesses do not address negative reviews at all. So, to sum up, for tech services, responding to reviews will allow the company to address customer concerns, while demonstrating that the company cares about the experiences and voices of their customers.
Speaking of negative reviews…
So, as we are speaking of negative reviews, there is no doubt that these are inevitable. However, they can also be turned into opportunities. Companies with a small percentage of negative reviews see a higher revenue than companies only having positive feedback. In other words, statistics actually show that the revenue for companies is higher with a percentage of negative reviews, and that this number diminishes for companies with fewer negative reviews.
This might seem contradictory, but negative reviews have a degree of authenticity which customers appreciate. For companies, addressing these negative reviews quickly and transparently can help retain customers, while also improving the service by resolving any outstanding issues.
Fighting fake reviews
In the past years, fake reviews have become an everyday challenge for companies. About 75% of consumers expresses concern about fake reviews, which is reflecting a growing awareness of the presence of such fake reviews. For tech services, and especially for online casinos and software solutions where trust is key, maintaining review integrity is critical to continuously foster trust. As a result, it is a necessity for businesses to actively monitor reviews for authenticity, and to flag and remove content that is not authentic.
Take the example of Google, which took drastic measures against fake reviews. The site deleted around 55 million reviews in 2020 that were deemed to be fake. It can be worth it for companies in tech spaces to implement a similar strategy based on review moderation tactics to detect suspicious patterns and take action. On the flipside, this is where comparing sites like Casinostugan is a great tool for consumers to leverage. At Casinostugan, reviews of online casinos are constantly monitored and updated by experts, which provides players with a great level of trust towards the reviews. Relying on expert reviews is a great way to ensure high quality of the review.
Showcasing reviews on websites and utilize reviews for SEO
Choosing to display reviews on websites is an effective way to influence purchasing behavior of consumers. Numbers show that product pages with visible user reviews see a higher conversation rate, since they provide useful information to potential customers, fostering a good environment for making informed decisions.
Online reviews are also a powerful SEO tool. Freshly user-generated content such as reviews will go in and improve a website’s search engine ranking, which makes it easier for potential customers to discover the page. Google and other platforms prioritize companies with regular review activity in search results, as this provides trust and transparency for online users, and this will consequently boost visibility. Encouraging this type of continuous feedback means that businesses can ensure continuous relevance and stay competitive in the ever-changing tech landscape.
Incentivizing reviews
Many companies have started to boost review generation by having incentives available for consumers. Incentives offered by companies include discounts, coupons, and exclusive features provided in exchange for feedback. The only flipside to this strategy is the slippery slope towards biased and inauthentic reviews.
It is important to maintain transparency and ensure that reviews based on incentives do not become biased and inauthentic, as this can undermine the reputation of a company. It is therefore important to manage this approach carefully.
Concluding remarks
As the world is becoming more and more digital, trust has become everything. This is why online reviews have become an essential tool for consumers and tech-based businesses alike, to maintain a high level of trust and interaction for the best user experience. Whether it being software companies, cloud service providers, or online casinos, reviews provide valuable insights about user experiences which ultimately can influence buying decisions.
Encouraging feedback and responding to reviews have become a crucial part of a strategic approach for companies who want their customers to be satisfied and feel heard in the vast landscape of online interactions. In industries built on trust, which is especially the case for online casinos, online reviews about online casino sites are crucial for players.
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