FREDERICK, Md. (PRWEB)
November 23, 2022

PVI Office Furniture will be collecting cold weather gear donations in partnership with HON Furniture Company to benefit The Frederick Rescue Mission, a non-profit organization assisting Frederick County residents and surrounding areas who are facing poverty, homelessness, and chemical addiction. Through December 10th, donations will be accepted Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Donations can also be made directly to The Frederick Rescue Mission online: https://therescuemission.org/give/#donate

PVI Office Furniture Company provides new and used office furniture in Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC, and beyond, as well as office space planning, delivery, and installation. For more information, visit http://www.pvipvi.com.

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New research co-authored with others by two Saunders College of Business faculty researchers provides one method for searching out five-star fakes. (Shutterstock)

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (PRWEB)
November 21, 2022

It doesn’t have to be the holidays for Amazon to receive a lot of attention from product buyers, but business on the nation’s largest online retailer is especially brisk this time of year.

While the company says it has over 12,000 employees who look for fraud on its site, the growing glut of fake reviews leaves one wondering whether that device or accessory you’re considering is truly so highly rated.

New research co-authored with others by Ali Tosyali and Gijs Overgoor, assistant professors in the Department of MIS, Marketing, and Analytics at RIT’s Saunders College of Business, provides one method for searching out five-star fakes.

In the study, titled, “Detecting Fake Review Buyers Using Network Structure: Direct Evidence from Amazon,” Tosyali and Overgoor:

• 
  Employed network science and machine learning to develop a highly accurate method for detecting fake reviews.
• Revealed that products that purchase fake reviews share a common set of reviewers, predominantly among Facebook groups, which are highly clustered in a product-reviewer network.
• Claim their research method is highly accurate and, unlike approaches relying on reviews’ text, their approach is more resistant to manipulation by sellers.

The research, featured in The Wall Street Journal earlier this year, offers a promising means of helping consumers avoid being duped by these fraudulent and misleading reviews. The paper has been published on pnas.org.

The two RIT professors became involved in the research after Tosyali’s personal experience purchasing a vitamin on Amazon. “The product I purchased had many reviews—approximately 5,000—with an average rating of 4.9,” Tosyali recalled. “After using it, I observed some side effects and returned the product.”

Upon returning the product, Tosyali looked at the reviews more closely and saw many negative comments, which referenced the side effects he experienced.

“However, because of the large number of five-star reviews, the product looked pretty satisfactory,” Tosyali observed. “At that point, I wondered if there was a way to detect fake reviews that mislead customers.”

During a follow-up conversation with Overgoor, Tosyali mentioned his experience and the two Saunders College faculty decided to look into the issue more closely.

Overgoor later discovered that some UCLA colleagues had initiated a paper analyzing the market of fake reviews using a dataset of Amazon reviews, and the researchers agreed to collaborate.

The dataset used took about nine months to collect, with the help of UCLA undergrads who infiltrated Facebook groups where fake reviews are solicited. After identifying sellers and products for which faux reviews were gathered, all reviews were then combined together. The research took about a year, employing techniques from network science, machine learning, and text and image analysis.

Based on their research, Tosyali and Overgoor offer the following tips for consumers to spot fake Amazon reviews.

• Compared to products not buying fake reviews, products that purchase fake reviews are highly connected and clustered in the network, implying that products buying fake reviews tend to have more reviewers in common than other products.
• While regular products receive their reviews from a dispersed set of millions of Amazon customers, products purchasing fake reviews must rely on the relatively small number of reviewers participating in the “fake review marketplace.”
• Features derived from the product-reviewer network are especially useful for detecting fake reviews because—in addition to being more predictive than text or metadata features—they are more difficult or costly to manipulate by sellers than text or review timing.

According to the RIT researchers, e-commerce platforms can use the research “as a flagging mechanism,” and “the research increases customers’ awareness of these harmful initiatives.”

“They could be more vigilant about five-star reviews and be aware that five-star reviews could be paid,” Tosyali said.

The team is working on additional research on this topic, Overgoor added.

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“We are excited to welcome the iSymplify team and expand our presence in the greater St. Louis area. Together, our joint resources expand our capabilities and emphasize our commitment to clients who need first-class technology advisory services,” said Seth Penland, Founder and CEO of Bluewave.

PARSIPANNY, N.J. (PRWEB)
November 21, 2022

Bluewave Technology Group (“Bluewave”), a strategic, high-growth technology advisory and lifecycle management company, today announced that it has acquired iSymplify, a cloud and telecom advisory agency. This is the sixth acquisition for Bluewave in the past 12 months and marks another expansion milestone for the company as it now has offices in five cities across the U.S., with nearly 100 employees offering technology lifecycle management services.

Serving the cloud technology industry since 2008, Brad and Lorie Burkemper founded iSymplify with ambitions of helping business clients migrate to the cloud with the best solutions and providers available. Seeing first-hand the difficulties their clients had tracking down inventory, proposals, contract expiration dates, and billing issues, iSymplify was formed to streamline the account lifecycle when procuring technology.

Almost 15 years later, iSymplify serves mid-market and enterprise clients nationwide and has a team of experienced and respected technical advisors. Important in the greater St. Louis community, they grew the company into an industry-leading firm and have ensured successful deployments of 15,000+ cloud-ready network nodes and over 50,000 cloud seats. In addition, iSymplify has received numerous community and partner awards. Lorie has been recognized as one of St. Louis’ Top Women Business owners and co-founded the group Women in Tech Connect – St. Louis.

As part of the acquisition, iSymplify’s owners, Lorie Burkemper and Brad Burkemper will join as Managing Partners at Bluewave. The iSymplify team will also join the company and continue providing first-class IT advisory services to the expansive suite of clients.

Driving business growth today demands specialized advisory and consulting resources with the technical knowledge to deliver meaningful client innovation and experience to scale operations. iSymplify’s philosophy for its clients and technical expertise provide even further scale and capabilities that complement Bluewave’s well-established service portfolio and ever-expanding geographic presence. Together, this acquisition bolsters the combined portfolio of services that accelerates innovation and automation at scale for clients.

“Our goal is to help businesses scale their operations efficiently and effectively while seizing innovation with the guidance of our best-in-class industry advisors,” said Seth Penland, Founder and CEO of Bluewave. “We are excited to welcome the iSymplify team and expand our presence in the greater St. Louis area. Together, our joint resources expand our capabilities and emphasize our commitment to clients who need first-class technology advisory services.”

“After almost 15 years of growth, we considered many options to expand our capabilities and better support our clients’ evolving technology needs,” said Lorie Burkemper, Founder and President of iSymplify. “Joining like-minded Bluewave allows us to further invest in our team and clients around solution consulting, expense management, and high-touch account management, as well as gain access to more robust processes and systems to provide clients with better insights and data to drive the best technology decisions.”

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Bluewave has partnered with Columbia Capital, a sector-focused investment firm with investments in enterprise IT, digital infrastructure, and mobility, to build a national technology advisory services provider.

About Bluewave Technology Group

Bluewave is a premier technology advisory and lifecycle management company with a comprehensive approach to optimizing clients’ ability to grow revenue, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. Bluewave streamlines the technology buying and management process for businesses of all sizes across the United States with four key services: Technology Evaluation, Strategic Sourcing, Expense Management, and Operations Support. Specializing in modernizing the IT and telecom infrastructure, Bluewave partners with proven cloud, network, security, and collaboration service providers to develop the best solution while maximizing the clients’ technology investment. Learn more at http://www.bluewave.net.

About iSymplify

iSymplify is a St.Louis-based cloud and telecom advisory agency that delivers telecommunications, cloud services, unified communications, and contact centers. The company serves its clients by providing exceptional customer service throughout the entire lifecycle of cloud-based technology projects. The company’s goal is to achieve business outcomes that grow its clients’ business, provide business efficiencies and savings, and to have fun doing it!

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TBI and Aryaka Networks Form Strategic Channel Partnership

“We’re excited to partner with a leading global technology services distributor like TBI to deliver our SD-WAN and SASE solution portfolio through its extensive network of sales partners.”

CHICAGO (PRWEB)
November 21, 2022

TBI, the nation’s leading technology services distributor, announces the addition of Aryaka Networks, a leader in unified SASE and SD-WAN solutions, to their supplier portfolio. TBI partners can now access Aryaka’s solutions, expanding their portfolio offerings to their customers.

“We’re excited to partner with a leading global technology services distributor like TBI to deliver our SD-WAN and SASE solution portfolio through its extensive network of sales partners,” said Aryaka’s Channel Chief and Senior Vice President of Global Channels Craig Patterson. “TBI is familiar with the ins and outs of Aryaka’s suite of SD-WAN and SASE solutions and can assist our joint customers in technical network environments, giving them an additional layer of resources and support to call upon during our engagement. TBI’s long history of strong partner relationships will enable us to expand our global reach and create new opportunities for their selling partners.”

Aryaka’s new managed SD-WAN and unified SASE solutions offer TBI sales partners many advantages, including:

• Industry’s First Zero Trust WAN Based on Unified SASE Architecture – Aryaka’s Zero Trust WAN includes Secure Web Gateway and firewall-as-a-service. This integration is the first to enable enterprises to easily enforce security policies across offices and remote users with unified control while delivering application performance and stability.
• Increased Total Addressable Market (TAM) – Aryaka’s all-in-one SD-WAN and SASE services are based on the company’s FlexCore™ technology, which enables partners to deliver services optimized for performance over Layer 2 or cost over Layer 3. This flexibility also expands the total addressable market for Aryaka’s services to include businesses of all sizes – from global enterprises to regional small and medium businesses (SMBs).
• Simplified Packaging and Pricing – Aryaka’s SmartConnect EZ + SmartConnect Pro and Prime EZ solutions are easy to quote, sell and consume with “T-shirt” sized pricing and standard service tiers, speeding time to revenue for partners.
• Co-managed Network Option – Aryaka’s AppAssure™ application enables VAR, MSP and white-label partners with the network visibility required to co-manage their clients’ networks, increasing their value and wallet share.

“We’re pleased to welcome Aryaka to the TBI provider portfolio,” said TBI’s Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships Scott Whalen. “Aryaka is at the forefront of converged networking and security. They offer our selling partners a high-growth solution that will enable them to replace legacy networking technologies with cloud-based services to support globally distributed hybrid work environments.”

About Aryaka

Aryaka is the leader in fully managed SD-WAN and Unified SASE solutions and the first to deliver a Zero Trust WAN based on a Unified SASE architecture. A Gartner “Voice of the Customer” leader, Aryaka meets customers where they are to help them overcome their network and security challenges with ease and an excellent customer experience. Aryaka’s flexible architecture and all-in-one service are designed to modernize enterprises of any size, enabling them to defy convention and future-proof their businesses. The company’s customer base is comprised of hundreds of global enterprises, including several in the Fortune 100. For more on Aryaka, please visit: https://www.aryaka.com/.

About TBI

TBI is North America’s largest privately held technology services distributor. Since 1991, TBI has assisted Systems Integrators, VARs, MSPs, IT consultants, developers, software distributors and many entrepreneurs in advising and sourcing the right technology solutions. TBI serves as a partner’s advocate, ensuring the proper provisioning of cloud, internet, data, mobility, voice, and managed services from best-in-class service suppliers to achieve clients’ desired business outcomes. Endorsed by partners as having the best back-office support in the Channel, TBI’s 75+ person team meticulously oversees partners’ projects, providing ongoing updates, and proactively handling any issues or escalations. Solutions engineers and subject matter experts, along with training and an award-winning marketing team, empower its partners to be the foremost authority to advise and source all of their clients’ technology needs in over 40 countries. For more information visit http://www.tbicom.com and follow TBI on LinkedIn.

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SEO.co releases new content and backlink audit services.

Both a backlink audit and content audit are critically essential for any long-term SEO strategy.

SEATTLE (PRWEB)
November 20, 2022

SEO.co, a leading SEO company, today announced the expansion of its SEO auditing service to include complete backlink and content audits. The new service is designed to help businesses identify and fix any issues with their website’s search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, including spammy backlinks, content redundancies, and content cannibalization issues.

Backlinks are one of the most important factors in determining a website’s rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). A high-quality, diverse, and natural backlink profile is essential for any website looking to rank well, and a backlink audit is the best way to identify any potential issues with a website’s backlinking strategy.

“We’re excited to offer our new content and backlink audit services,” said Nate Nead, CEO of SEO.co. “This service is designed to help businesses identify and fix any issues with their backlinks and content, two important factors for ensuring websites rank highly in search engines.”

SEO.co’s new backlink audit service includes a comprehensive analysis of a website’s backlink profile, including:

• 
  The number and quality of backlinks
• The distribution of links across different websites and webpages
• The source of links – whether they’re from directories, blog comments, or other websites
• The type of the links (e.g. dofollow vs. nofollow vs. UGC)
• The anchor text of links – whether the keywords being targeted are being targeted correctly

By identifying any potential issues with a website’s backlinking strategy, businesses can fix them and improve their rank in SERPs.

In addition, the company is greatly expanding its content auditing service and capabilities. A content audit is a comprehensive analysis of a website’s content. It can identify any issues with the website’s content strategy, including duplicate content, plagiarized content, and keyword cannibalization. The SEO.co team will also find areas where LSI (latent semantic indexing) and entity keywords can and should be added and/or removed from the body text or various header text.

“Both a backlink audit and content audit are critically essential for any long-term SEO strategy,” says Samuel Edwards, CMO at SEO.co. “By conducting these audits, businesses can identify any areas where their SEO efforts may be falling short and then take the necessary steps to improve their rank, gain more visitors and increase sales. It’s one of the reasons we have also recently updated our link building guide for beginners, so potential clients can see the importance and understand what we are doing.”

SEO.co is dedicated to providing SEO solutions for businesses of all sizes. The company’s new backlink audit and content audit services are just two of the many ways that SEO.co is helping businesses boost their ranking in SERPs and reach more customers.

About SEO.co

In business since 2010, SEO.co is a leading SEO agency that offers a wide range of services to businesses of all sizes. Services include search engine optimization (SEO), SEO link building services backlink audits, content audits, and more. SEO.co is dedicated to helping businesses achieve their online marketing goals and reach more customers. In addition, its affiliate entities provide custom software development and web design services to companies large and small. This service complements the high-quality SEO agency services customers and clients have come to expect over the last decade.

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MILPITAS, Calif. (PRWEB)
November 16, 2022

AGON by AOC, a leader in gaming monitors and peripherals, today announces its new two-year brand sponsorship with Esports Arena, LLC. AOC will outfit and sell product inside Esports Arena locations within 18 Walmart stores nationwide starting November 2022. Through the end of 2023, 50 stores are expected to be added to its roster.

“We are very excited about our new partnership with Esports Arena,” says David Ray, North America Marketing Director at Envision Peripherals Inc. “AGON by AOC has built strong momentum in the Esports segment, and Esports Arena is aggressively extending its own reach through top Walmart retail locations and its own online activations. This will bring the AGON by AOC brand to multitudes of new gaming enthusiasts.”

Esports Arena is North America’s first dedicated eSports facility and home to all things competitive gaming through Series E, as well as in-person tournaments and casual play. Series E is a Semi-Professional ecosystem, launched by Esports Arena, where brands can sponsor one of twelve drafted teams to play throughout the season.

“Esports Arena is always evolving to stay ahead of the game. One of the ways we continue to do that is through collaborations with brands that provide the best, most competitive experiences for our customers across the United States. AGON by AOC is a great addition to our ecosystem, providing top-of-the-line monitors that truly amplify the gaming experience,” says Tyler Endres, CEO of Esports Arena.

Gaming monitors featured at Esports Arena at top Walmart locations are available for public play and include the models below:

• 
  24G2SPE
• 27G2SPE
• AG274UXP
• AG254FG

AOC Raises the Bar with its Re-Spawned Warranty

AGON by AOC set the bar for gaming monitor coverage with its Re-Spawned Warranty. AGON and AGON Pro models are covered by an industry-leading 4-year advance replacement warranty that includes a 4-year zero dead pixel guarantee, and 1 year of accidental damage coverage (1 incident per monitor). AOC Gaming (G Series) models are covered by a 3-year advance replacement warranty that includes a 3-year zero dead pixel guarantee, and 1 year of accidental damage coverage (1 incident per monitor).

For further Information about AOC or the Re-Spawned Warranty, contact Jamy Reyes at jamy.reyes@epius.com.

ABOUT AOC

Founded in 1967, AOC is a leading PC monitor and accessories brand, and a subsidiary of TPV Technology Limited. AOC’s comprehensive product portfolio provides innovative, ergonomic, environmentally conscious, and stylish solutions for professional as well as personal applications.

The sub-brand of AOC, AGON by AOC, offers one of the strongest portfolios of high-performance gaming monitors in the world and a complete ecosystem of gaming accessories grouped in three categories: AOC GAMING for core gamers, AGON for competitive gamers and AGON PRO for esports enthusiasts and professional esports players. Since 2020 AGON by AOC has been one of the leading gaming monitor brands and a top choice of gamers worldwide.

For more information, please refer to AGON by AOC’s official website or follow AGON by AOC on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

ABOUT ESPORTS ARENA

Esports Arena is North America’s first dedicated esports facility. Home to all things competitive gaming, Esports Arena captures live and online audiences via streaming and in-person events at a fraction of the cost of everything else on the market.

Esports Arena opened its doors in 2015 as North America’s first dedicated esports facility. Since then, 18 locations have opened across the country in partnership with Walmart. Esports Arena is the hub for video game launching events, streams that encompass a variety of gaming genres, and tournaments that amateurs and pros alike participate in weekly.

Esports Arena takes pride in its ability to be a part of every gaming community. They help facilitate community-driven and crowd-funded events from first-person, competitive games like Apex Legends and Halo, to MOBAs like League of Legends, to nostalgic, feel-good games like Pokemon and Animal Crossing. There is a place for every gamer at Esports Arena!

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