Category: Services

How to Spot a Fake Review on Amazon

Have you ever been researching a purchase and found a product whose reviews are too good to be true? Or read a review that was so general it could have been anything? Chances are, you’ve seen some fake reviews in your time. How can you tell if a review is real?

The folks at Wired have already written a great article on this subject, and I’d encourage you to read it. They have done a fantastic job of listing possible red flags and showing you how to get the most recent reviews for a product.

Use Fakespot to Automate Checks

If you would rather not pick through reviews manually, there is a service called Fakespot that can help. You can open the Fakespot analyzer page and copy/paste the URL for each item you’d like to check, or you can install an extension in Chrome or Firefox from the Fakespot home page (scroll halfway down for the link).

Screen shot showing a button to add the Fakespot extension to Firefox, as well as a dropdown menu that shows other platforms for using Fakespot.
I was using Firefox, so the middle of the home page offered the Firefox extension.

If you are using a mobile device, you can download the app version for iOS or Android.

How Does Fakespot Work?

Fakespot uses artificial intelligence (AI) to spot red flags and suspicious patterns that may or may not be obvious to human observers.

To test it, I pasted a link for an automatic cat feeder I found on Amazon into the Fakespot analyzer page. Not only did it give me an overall grade for the review quality, but it also picked out some of the most helpful information that was buried in all those reviews. Here are some screen shots from the results page:

Screen shot showing the overall review grade of "B", along with the Amazon rating and adjusted Fakespot rating.
Under the “B”, notice that Fakespot adjusts the Amazon rating based on how reliable the reviews are.
Screen shot showing a few review excerpts in groups of pros and cons.
Some pros and cons culled from the reviews
Screen shot of review excerpts pertaining to the quality or competitiveness of the product
Some more tidbits are found in the “highlights” section

Other available information includes an overview of how reliable the reviews are, the most positive and negative reviews, seller warnings, and other helpful insights.

If you decide to install the browser extension, using Fakespot is even easier. It automatically adds insights on the selling page itself:

Screen shot of Amazon price area with added Fakespot information
Fakespot’s grade is above the price
Screen shot of item title with the link "7 highlights found by Fakespot" under the title
Link to highlights below item title

Note: When installing the app or extension, you may be prompted to give permission for app to know your email. This allows you to save settings without an account. You may be prompted for permission to read or change data on sites you visit. This is so Fakespot info can be added to a site that isn’t already supported (see below).

Limitations

Keeping in mind that AI technology is not infallible, Fakespot can be a great tool to help you spot dodgy sellers and items using fake reviews to boost sales. While the tool is not compatible with all e-commerce sites, it does automatically cover:

  • Amazon™
  • BestBuy™
  • Sephora™
  • Steam™
  • TripAdvisor™
  • Yelp™
  • Walmart™

To use the browser extension on sites other than these, you will need to give your browser permission to edit the page, as mentioned above.

Summary

Fakespot is an awesome free tool for automating the vetting of online reviews. With Black Friday coming up in a couple of months, would you be inclined to use this tool?

Looking for Your Next Read? Check out NoveList!

It’s happened to all readers at some point. You’ve finished a book you loved, but you aren’t sure what to read next. NoveList can help. NoveList is a unique database that allows you to search or browse various criteria to find your next read.

NoveList can be accessed at home by East Greenbush and Schodack residents, and it can be accessed by anyone at the library by connecting to our network.

If you like a particular title, NoveList allows you to search for that title. You’ll get information about the book, including its genre, tone, and writing style. To the column on right, you can see similar titles.

Screenshot of a book's summary page in NoveList

From the NoveList homepage, you can access their appeal mixer if you’re in the mood for reading books written in a particular style.

Screenshot of appeal mixer, which states "I'm in the mood for books that are..." with suggested combinations of factors books that align to the combination.

You can mix and match, and limit by age. If the pre-made appeal factors aren’t your style, you can make your own combo with the appeal mixer.

For an overview of all the neat ways you can use NoveList to find your next read, check out our YouTube video:

Have you used NoveList? Let us know in the comments!

Summer Reading with a Technology Twist

If you haven’t participated in the library’s seasonal reading challenges in the last couple of years, you may be surprised to learn that you can now use an app to track your progress. Paper trackers are still available upon request, but we hope you will enjoy the convenience of being able to enter your progress on your device of choice.

The free app we use to configure and track seasonal reading programs is called Beanstack. We also use it to track the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten for preschool-aged children. Here is a brief video demonstrating how to sign up for Beanstack. This video only covers setting up Beanstack for the first use, not how to use the tracking features. We did it that way because each reading program has different rules and activities, and we didn’t want to confuse folks by creating a video that shows the activities from previous years.

If there is only one reading challenge running that you qualify for when you sign up, you will automatically be added to that challenge. When you click on the challenge, you will be presented with a list of activities you can perform to earn raffle tickets used to win prizes at the end of the program. In some cases, logging reading time or titles may be part of the program. Return to the app each time you have something to log.

Registration for this summer’s reading challenge starts June 27th, with the theme Oceans of Possibilities. After the summer reading program is over, make sure you save your login credentials because you will need them again for the next reading challenge! If you have any questions, please contact library staff for assistance.

Find Quick Answers to Common Tech Questions with Tech-Talk

Tech-Talk.com is an online resource available to patrons of the East Greenbush Community Library. This resource comes in several formats.

  • A website full of articles and videos to help you learn what you need to know to be successful with everyday technology
  • An app to help you get the above resources on-the-go
  • A weekly newsletter containing a quick technology tip
  • Access to live webinars that end up as videos on the website
  • The opportunity to request an article or webinar on a topic of your choosing

The Website

In part one of our series about the Tech-Talk website, we showed you how to find novice-level help for using email, the internet, and documents. This time, we will highlight three collections on the website with access to quick answers.

The first collection is a new page they’ve started, called One Tip, One Minute Videos. The aim of this page is to offer cool tips you may not have been looking for, but may be useful. I know the format painter tip is one I use all the time since I watched the video.

The second collection, Popular Problems, can be useful to users of any level. This page contains a list of frequently requested topics, broken down by user level. Click on a subject to find the best 5 related articles.

The last page I want to show you today is the Quick Reference Guide collection. Each reference guide represents an overarching subject (for example, Word) and it contains links to articles and videos on that subject. Save or print the PDF guide for future reference, if desired. Please note that the website navigation has changed since the Quick Reference Guides were created, so some of the navigation tips in the PDFS for finding the articles are outdated. However, the links to the pages within the PDF still work.

Do You Use Tech-Talk?

If you have tried Tech-Talk, let us know what you think! Did they have the answers you were looking for?

Get Unbiased Product Reviews with Free Access to Consumer Reports

Are you looking to make a purchase and want to find unbiased reviews to help you with your search? The library offers access to Consumer Reports Online, which features reviews for a variety of different products including appliances, cars, electronics and more. Their website also offers a deals section with weekly deals on top rated products, news about product recalls, helpful articles on various products, and more.

If you would like a quick tutorial on how to access the database, check out our YouTube video tutorial:

To get started, go to the Find it Online section of the library’s website. Please note that remote access to this database is only available to resident cardholders. If you have any questions about how to use the database, please call the library or leave a comment.