Westvleteren 12, a product of Westvleteren Abdij St. Sixtus, topped the list of 50 best beers. The beer, a RateBeer Gold Medal winner, comes from a brewery that has “the smallest output of the Trappist breweries,” and is less available than a more popular Belgian Quadrupel like Rochefort 10.

Here’s the top 10, which were determined by over 3.5 million reviews. RateBeer says that they placed more emphasis on user reviews coming from tastings that occurred in the last year.

1. Westvleteren 12 – Westvleteren Abdij St. Sixtus
2. Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter - Närke Kulturbryggeri
3. Goose Island Rare Bourbon County Stout – Goose Island Beer Company
4. Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout – Founders Brewing Company
5. Rochefort Trappistes 10 – Brasserie Rochefort
6. Bells Hopslam – Bells Brewery
7. Russian River Pliny the Younger – Russian River Brewing
8. Cigar City Pilot Series Passionfruit and Dragonfruit Berliner Weisse – Cigar City Brewing
9. AleSmith Speedway Stout – AleSmith Brewing Company
10. Deschutes The Abyss – Deschutes Brewery

Personal favorite brewery Three Floyd’s had two beers in the top twenty – Dark Lord russian Imperial Stout at number 13 and their ass-kicking Dreadnaught Imperial IPA at number 17. Another personal favorite, Southern Tier’s Choklat came in at number 40.

Craft beer is on the rise, says RateBeer in a post:

Craft beer is at a wonderful stage. No longer are we competing for respect as a second class beverage. We’ve won respect. And the craft beer industry is enjoying great success. The number of craft brewers is still increasing markedly. Last year alone RateBeer new brewers increased a whopping 16%. And RateBeer is still growing rapidly, primarily in large US metro areas like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York and abroad in Australia, Sweden, Italy and Brazil.

RateBeer also awarded prizes in specific categories. Munster, Indiana’s Three Floyds topped the list of best breweries in the World 2012. The best new brewers category was won by anchorage, Alaska’s anchorage Brewing Company.

Thirty-three percent say while out shopping, they email or texted someone to tell them about an experience at a store, such as finding a deal or gift. Nineteen percent have used their phone to post something to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or other social networking sites about their holiday shopping experience.

In addition, half or nearly half used their smart phones to find a store location (52%), research specific products they were thinking of purchasing (48%), browse for products (44%), and/or compare prices (40%). About one in three looked for discounts, deals, coupons, or discount codes (35%) on their mobile phones, or checked product availability at retail stores or websites (34%).

“Portability is a game-changer in transforming the way that people shop,” said Chris Davey, worldwide head of commerce at SapientNitro.

“Technology is causing some of the biggest shifts in human behavior that we’ve seen in years, and consumers are more informed and empowered than ever. This has a major impact not only on the way that consumers shop but also on the way that retailers need to market to consumers this holiday season.”

Among Americans who have started their holiday shopping:

*About half (53%) say they purchased a product in a physical retail store after researching the product online.

*Nearly half (44%) purchased a product online after shopping for a similar item in a physical store.

*Seven in ten (69%) say online customer ratings or reviews (such as on Amazon or Yelp) very or somewhat valuable.

*About half find e-mail promotions (50%) or online videos of product features/reviews (53%) valuable
 

Not only are many Americans sharing updates about their life (43%), what they are currently doing (36%), and places they are going (31%), many are also revealing brand, product and company preference. Specifically, about one-quarter are expressing their dissatisfaction with companies, brand or products (26%), talking about companies, brands or products they like (23%) or giving product reviews and recommendations (19%). In fact, 34 percent indicate they have used social media as an outlet to complain about a company, brand or product.

More than one-third (38%) of Americans say they aim to influence others when expressing their preferences online and almost half (46%) feel the can be honest on the Internet.
While online Americans aged 55 and older are less likely to use social media compared to younger Americans (43% of those 55 and older, versus 78% of 18-34 year olds, 71% of 35-44 year olds and 59% of 45-54 year olds), all age groups who use social media are equally likely to share their dissatisfaction with a company, brand or product via social media (25% of those 18-34 years old, 26% of those 35-44 years old, 25% of those 45-54 years old and 29% of those aged 55 and up).
 

What people say online about companies, brands and products matters, according to Harris.  In fact, nearly half of Americans who use social media say reviews about a particular company, brand or product from friends or people they follow on social networking websites influence them either a great deal or a fair amount (45%) – the same number as Americans who say reviews in newspaper or magazine articles influence them (46%).

Even though people may not reveal everything, 83 percent say they know that by participating in social media, they are giving up some of their privacy.

Despite some of the differences between younger and older Americans in their use of social media, a majority of Americans (78%) agree that what they reveal about themselves on social networking sites is just a snapshot, not a complete portrait, of who they are
 

The move comes amid at least three lawsuits alleging that Yelp manipulates reviews based on whether a company advertises with the site.

Beginning today, anyone who wants to see which reviews have been identified by Yelp’s automated review filter will be able to do so via a link to a separate page containing that content. The company is also dropping its "Favorite Review" feature that has been part of its advertising for the past four years.

"Today we’ve taken steps to make it even more clear that Yelp treats review content equally for advertisers and non-advertisers alike and that there is no relationship between advertising and a business’ reviews on Yelp," said Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s chief executive officer and co-founder. 

"While Yelp is helping millions of consumers find millions of great local businesses each month — and consumer traffic and business advertisers continue to reach new highs — myths have persisted about how review content is displayed on Yelp."

Yelp said the removal of its "Favorite Review" feature will make it more clear that reviews on the site are separate from advertising. Instead advertisers will be able to post a video to their Yelp pages.

The company said it will continue to work on ways to combat fake or malicious reviews and will continue to develop the review filter to keep ahead of spammers.
 

Original Article: Multiple reports say that Google is in negotiations to acquire Yelp, a site that caters to reviews of local businesses. Mike Arrington claims to have confirmed this with "multiple sources," and says the price is at least $500 million.

Yelp has an interesting page in which it squashes 9 "myths" about the service. Yelp says you don’t have to buy advertising to rank highly in Yelp search results, and that the only paid reviews are in clearly-marked ad form. Apparently a common myth is that Yelp reviewers are all young, and in high school or college.

"In January 2009, 94% of Yelp reviewers were over 23 years old," says Yelp. "This means about 6% of reviewers fall into that ‘high school or college age’ category."

Yelp.com had over 26 million unique visitors in the US in November. According to Yelp, people have  written over 8 million local reviews, with over 85% of them rating a business 3 stars or higher.

Let’s remember that nothing is final yet, and there is still a possibility that Google will not acquire Yelp. According to Arrington, one source says the deal is 80% likely. Take that as you will.

Related Articles:

> Yelp Releases A Blackberry App

> Yelp Controversy Highlights Trouble With Consumer Reviews

> Yelp Branches Out With UK Site

Only 28 percent of respondents said they had posted their own feedback online while 66 percent had checked some type of online review forum when looking to purchase a specific brand of product or service.

"Our findings suggest that a very vocal minority may have an oversized influence on buyer behavior," said Linda Shea, SVP and Global Managing Director of Opinion Research Corporation’s Customer Strategies Practice.

"Nevertheless, when negative customer feedback is served up in a very public forum, it has great potential to tarnish the reputation of a brand and therefore any future revenue stream."

Half of respondents relied on online reviews in the first stage of the buying cycle. This is critical for companies to understand as they fight to be considered by consumers and look for ways to be ever-present through a variety of channels and media outlets," said Shea.

"Taking a more proactive approach to participating in, monitoring and controlling online reviews may very well be one of the many ways organizations can influence both consumer consideration, and, ultimately, the buying decision."

The most popular types of products or services researched online were travel, recreation or leisure (80%), followed by electronic goods (78%), and household products and services (70%).

Commonly visited online forums included company Web sites (71%); online ratings systems (57%) and government/ consumer advocacy sites (54%).

The study focused on the offline sales impact of online reviews for restaurants, hotels, travel, legal, medical, automotive and home services. About one out of every four Internet users (24 percent) said they used online reviews before paying for a service delivered offline. Out of those that referenced an online review, 41 percent of restaurant reviewers went on to visit a restaurant, while 40 percent of hotel reviewers stayed at a hotel.

Over three-quarters of review users in almost every category reported that the review had a major impact on their purchase with hotels ranking highest (87 percent). Ninety-seven percent of those who said they made a purchase based on an online review said the review was accurate. Review users reported that reviews written by other consumers had more of an influence than those written by professionals.

"This study underscores the importance of providing not just good, but excellent, service if a business hopes to generate positive consumer reviews which will result in greater sales," said Brian Jurutka, senior director, comScore Marketing Solutions.

Bazaarvoice data revealed an increase in ratings and review activity for the week of November 19-26,2007, with a peak on Thanksgiving evening as shoppers prepared for Black Friday. Bazaarvoice said it served 1,400 ratings and reviews per second at the peak, which took place at 9:25 pm EST on Thursday, November 22.

 "For many Americans, Thanksgiving evening is a time to study circulars and plan your Friday shopping strategy," said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice.

"Our data shows that a new tradition is taking hold: opening the Web browser to read reviews online before shopping in the stores. This new data point, along with our recent research with the Keller Fay Group that shows that two-thirds of shoppers post online reviews about their offline purchases, is a strong indicator that the crossover between the online and offline shopping experience has become a retail reality in 2007."

On Cyber Monday the company served 71 million ratings and reviews, up 370 percent from the 19 million served on Cyber Monday in 2006. Cyber Monday activity peaked at 1,300 ratings and reviews served per second at 1:40 pm EST and remained solid until 11:00 pm EST. Bazaavoice said it expects usage to remain high through the rest of the holiday shopping season.

"We anticipated a large number of ratings and reviews for Cyber Monday," said Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice.

"Research from Shop.org and MarketingSherpa shows that review usage has nearly doubled in the US over the last year. We served more than three times as many ratings and reviews as we did last year, highlighting consumers’ increased reliance on reviews and the increased number of retail sites with review content hosted by Bazaarvoice."

The new feature will allow customers to submit ratings and reviews of merchandise available online only as well as products sold in stores.

"Reviews and ratings is the No. 1 customer-requested feature online at Walmart.com, and we’re pleased to offer this service to better help our community of customers shop smart and make informed decisions about the products they purchase both in our Wal-Mart stores and online," said Cathy Halligan, Walmart.com’s chief marketing officer.

Wal-Mart had a test of customer reviews and ratings in June to receive customer feedback and gauge overall results. Customer reviews more than doubled the company’s expectations during the test phase and they received the most reviews in the categories of electronics, home and garden, media and baby.

"We know close to 75 percent of Wal-Mart’s 130 million customers are online which presents a significant opportunity for our online reviews and ratings platform to connect our customers to one another, and also help them further engage, communicate, share opinions, and learn more about products available at Wal-Mart," added Halligan. "It’s all part of our continued commitment to be the premier multi-channel retailer."

Wal-Mart says that customers can submit a review by viewing a product online or by email invitation sent a few weeks after they have placed and received an order. The product reviews are published within five days of submission.

Ford Manipulates Forum Posts To Promote Mariner

Granted, this matter doesn’t involve “taste” in a food-related sense, but the same concept applies.  And, although we’ve noticed questionable online reviews in the past, Ford’s tendency to pick and choose the ones that suit its needs is even more troubling.  Jalopnik’s Ray Wert broke the story.

“We just got the latest press missive from Ford on the 2008 Mercury Mariner in both hybrid and non-hybrid flavors,” he begins, noting that the release included “supposed owner comments culled from the posts of consumer auto-site forums.

“As you can expect,” Wert continues, “the remarks provide glowing recommendations on the ‘08 Mercury mini-SUV using words like ‘best,’ ‘love’ and the always forum fan fave of ‘WOW!’  All of this gushing got us wondering whether every Mariner forum post on the consumer auto sites is filled with gushing car-love.”

Wert then reveals, “It turns out that’s not the case.  We were able to come up with some forum posts that seem to indicate maybe the Mariner isn’t ‘A HIT’ with every online consumer.”  Stories involving cheap materials, noisy brakes, and poor ergonomics follow.

Ford’s marketing approach is rather underhanded; it’s also extremely pathetic.  Couldn’t the company find someone with more credibility than “Ex-Toyota Driver on www.autos.msn.com” to compliment its vehicle?  Ford, I think you’ve got a little sulfuric acid on your chin.