We already know most consumers rely on the Internet and unbiased consumer reviews before buying anything. What we don’t know is how significant is its impact to offline buying habits.

A new study of comScore and The Kelsey Group reveals that nearly one out of every four Internet users (24 percent) reported using online reviews prior to paying for a service delivered offline.

This study also showed that consumers were willing to pay between 20 percent and 99 percent more for an Excellent (5 star) rating than for a Good (4 star rating), depending on the product category.

“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.

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Amazon.com launched Askville.com, a website where users ask and answer questions, and discover answers to thousands of questions on everything from how to buy an HDTV to the best way to lose weight. Askville.com users who share their knowledge by answering questions will receive Quest Gold, which, for a limited time and while supplies last, can be redeemed for $100 or $50 Amazon.com Gift Cards.

Askville.com is now available to all Amazon customers around the world. Askville.com had been open to a select number of users since its initial beta launch last December. Users who are not Amazon customers and have a cell phone in the U.S. and Canada can still gain access to Askville.com by authenticating themselves via mobile phone.

Askville.com users who ask or answer questions earn Quest Gold. The amount of Quest Gold a user earns is tied to how well they answer questions on Askville.com and what level of expertise they have reached in a particular topic. Askville.com plans to launch another website called Questville.com where users will be able to use their Quest Gold for various activities and a chance to get other rewards.

BigString Corporation will be the private label email provider for the new email offering by the iRazoo search portal.

iRazoo’s users will be able to sign-up for a freeemail account, offering all the functionalities of BigString’s patent-pending email services, including self-destructing, tracking and video email.

Users of the new iRazoo’s private label email will be able to send an embedded video email (up to 10 minutes in length) without the need for the recipient to click on the a link or download the video. Another unique email features allow users to remotely erase or modify emails sent to recipients, designate their emails to be non-forwardable, non-printable and/or non-savable, or opt to have their emails self-destruct after a set amount of time or views. In addition, users will also have the added security to send secure emails via an encrypted, password-protected email system that can only be open via a Secure Socket Layer (SSL).

A new DNA test that genetically screens pets for dozens of inherited diseases is now available at PetGadgets.com.

Pawsitive I.D. identifies more than two dozen hereditary diseases, including Progressive Retinal Atrophy and Von Willebrand Disease. The at-home test also reveals a pet’s DNA fingerprint – a unique genetic code that never changes, giving owners a permanent and positive form of identification.
The Pawsitive I.D. kit contains a Pet Profile with customer ID number and sterile cheek swabs. Owners simply fill out the profile, and rub the swab against the inside of their pet’s cheek for about 10 seconds. A postage paid envelope is provided.

Pawsitive ID uses a complex system of DNA Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (pronounced SNiPs) to test for your pet’s susceptibility to certain genetic diseases. The cheek samples are examined by lab professionals who analyze selected regions of the chromosomes in the DNA. Within the regions, scientists can identify an individual within a species and compare the genotypes to identify the potential for genetic disorders.

Test results take about two weeks. Owners receive a certificate with DNA disease and trait screening information as well as fingerprint data. An interpretive guide explains the results and what action should be taken if a positive or carrier results is listed. Pawsitive I.D. keeps a duplicate certificate for up to 15 years, in a secure database, for owners in case their pet becomes lost or legal ownership needs to be proven.

On December 3 at 7pm ET, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) will be the third presidential candidate, and first Republican, to participate in the groundbreaking MySpace/MTV Presidential Dialogue series. The interactive Dialogue will take place at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, NH with an in-person audience of university students, and for the first time, be simultaneously broadcast live on MTV, MySpace, MTV’s ChooseOrLose.com, cross-carriers on MTV Mobile, and translated live into Spanish via ImpreMedia’s LaVibra.

Myspace.com/election2008 and www.ChooseOrLose.com is now accepting user-submitted video questions (30 seconds or less) on the issues that matter most to young voters in the upcoming elections. Submissions will be accepted through Sunday, December 2, and the video with the highest ratings and community response on Monday will be posed to Sen. McCain during the evening dialogue.

A revolutionary online polling tool, powered by Flektor, allows the online audience to instantaneously register its approval or disapproval of candidate responses throughout the event. The Flektor tool enables the series’ industry-leading pollsters, John McLaughlin and Geoffrey Garin, to custom tailor in-depth response options for the online audience, providing viewers the means to register immediate feedback on the candidate’s responses and help to shape the direction of the forum. Poll results are displayed on the screen and viewers can compare their opinions to those of the entire community through a “popular vote” function.

KickApps announced the availability of a Single Sign-On (SSO) module that enables a seamless member login experience between Drupal powered sites and KickApps hosted social media sites. Developers and publishers using the open source content management system (CMS) can now easily integrate social media experiences, such as social networking, user-generated content, programmable video players and widgets for content syndication, with their sites to fuel audience growth and engagement.

The module includes support for versions 6.x, 5.3 and 4.7 of Drupal. When developers enable the KickApps SSO module for their Drupal sites, registered site members will be auto-registered into the site’s KickApps powered community during sign in, requiring no initial user import by the developer. Once logged in and on the community site, the member is brought over to his or her profile page, where they can start uploading video, photos and audio, and manage their media.

I Love Rewards Inc., a web based reward program provider, has completed a $3.3 million Series A financing round with JLA Ventures, Laurence Capital and other angel investors.

I Love Rewards plans to use the funding to further develop marketing strategies and technological capabilities, with the focus on I Love Rewards Express, its online business-to-business rewards platform targeted to the small to medium size business market.

uBid.com has teamed up with Mary Kay, the official beauty sponsor of “The 41st Annual CMA Awards” to launch “A Kiss for Country,” a philanthropic campaign dedicated to ending domestic violence.

uBid.com will host more than 30 different online auctions for one-of-a-kind framed kiss prints of Country Music artists like Reba McEntire, Sara Evans, Miranda Lambert, Tanya Tucker, George Strait and Martina McBride.

The online auctions for the “kiss card” plaques all have a starting bid of $55 and run from November 6, 2007 to December 31, 2007. Entire roceeds will be donated to the Mary Kay Ash Charitable Foundation to help end domestic violence against women and children.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) and IAM, a company founded by Xavier Gouyou Beauchamps and Pascal Josèphe, reported that it had taken minority shareholding in Scooplive, renamed Citizenside.

Scooplive, a company founded in 2006 by Matthieu Stefani, Julien Robert and Philippe Checinski, gives individuals the opportunity to sell their pictures and videos on current news, in return for a small commission. The company now takes a step forward and becomes Citizenside, a site which enables the media to use the platform that has been developed for two years as a white label. The media will thus be able to cultivate nearness and interaction with their readers or audience, and to obtain from them news documents to complement their own or agencies production.

With contributors from around 90 countries, Citizenside.com is a site pursuing strategic aims: acceleration of its international development, widening of its community, increase of the documents received and of the number of partnerships with the press, TV, web and mobile media.

It’s now evident online news publishers are not quite pleased with the way search engines index their sites.

Today, these publishers will unveil their new proposals at the Associated Press headquarters to prevent any disagreements with leading search engines like Google and Yahoo!

Currently, crawlers of different search engines follow the rules of news sites as stated in their text file named as “robots.txt”. However, they still feel this method is not flexible enough to express their terms and conditions.

Common complaints include posting of news summaries, photos, and headlines without permission. The system called Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) is created to avoid any legal problems.

While Google welcome these proposals, they will need time to thoroughly evaluate these proposed extensions to make sure these represent the needs of the majority and not of a single community.

“Ultimately, ACAP will benefit everyone: publishers, search engines and, most of all, consumers, by creating a fair and content-rich online experience for all of us: no standards wars; no proprietary monopolies; open collaboration: win, win for all,” said Gavin O’Reilly, chairman The World Association of Newspapers, to PC Pro.