What do people trust most these days? It's not government, media, for-profit organizations or even nonprofit organizations. It's online reviews. According to a study last year, a whopping 91% of people trust an online review, even if they don't know the person behind it.

Editor's note: This is the ninth of an ongoing series profiling the 2018 SIPAward winners. See links to the others below.

"Topic is the number one reason why people register for a webinar," Leslie Davidson, a leading webinar consultant from Davidson Direct, wrote on the SIPA Forum recently. "Evergreen topics still pull, but they don't begin to compare with the hot topics of the day, such as new regulations.

"We started [teleforums] in 2014, and it has grown to become a value-added outreach program. While our members travel in the car or fly in the air, they can listen to a live or recorded conversation that feels more like talk radio than a slideshow presentation."

Columbia Books & Information Services' American Paint Contractor held a contest recently to find the top contractor videos. "You've watched them, you voted for them, and now you can help us congratulate the winners of APC's Top Contractor Videos on the Web, sponsored by California Paint and Golden Artist Inc."

Gamification continues to soar in publishing, and for good reason. It's engaging, can convey important information, bring in new email addresses and unleash some fun. Here are some recent uses that I’ve come across: Convey important information. Education Week has a weekly sponsored quiz. The one I just took is sponsored by Discovery Education. They also post the following: “Education Week has full editorial control of content.” 75099 Once you finish, you can see how your score compares to your peers, get the correct answers with detailed explanations, and be provided with additional readings and resources on the topic. Have some fun with the publisher. The Atlantic Life Timeline, sponsored by National Geographic, invites readers to "explore your life in history. Tell us your birthday, and we'll show you how the world has changed during your lifetime." I entered my birthdate and found out that I'm "one of the fi ...

What's the saying from that Shakespeare guy, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players..." Well, all the world is now Eventbrite, and we're all merely attenders. They seem to have taken over the low-scale, event registration business. So if they are blogging about events, we should probably pay attention.