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Prorize, a provider of revenue management solutions, announced today that they and their customer, Holiday Retirement, the largest private owner and operator of independent senior living communities in the United States, have been jointly awarded the Franz Edelman Award. The award, sponsored by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®), recognizes and rewards outstanding contributions of analytics and operations research in for-profit and non-profit sectors around the globe.

While online users are becoming increasingly reliant on reviews to help evaluate products and services, there is a significant downfall for companies who pay users to write reviews.

It's a bit of an understatement to say that consumers have come to rely on the internet. For everything from work to entertainment, there's an online aspect that usually makes things easier or more convenient. This is especially true when it comes to shopping. Online sites like Yelp, ConsumerAffairs and TripAdvisor, and forums such as those found on Amazon and even Reddit, have made making an informed purchase that much easier. So, should these sites pay consumers for their review insights? While your curiosity might be piqued at the idea of being paid to share your opinion, a new study shows that paying users to encourage them to write reviews is probably a bad idea.

University of Montana students Brandon Staggs and David Brewer spent a week in Las Vegas, where they, err, did a lot of homework. Staggs and Brewer graduate in May as part of the first Master's of Science in Business Analytics cohort at UM. They're also part of the first UM team to attend the INFORMS Business Analytics conference in Vegas, where they interviewed with companies such as Amazon, GM Financial, Deloitte, and MGM Grand.