How much trust do you put in online reviews?

Take about 5 photos of every place you review... they like that.

 

I tend to gloss over the love/hate reviews on the ends of the spectrum and read what is in between. This goes for hotels, electronics purchases, professors at school, etc. If I remember, I make sure to add a review myself.

I use Rotten Tomatoes for movies - after reading the reviews, I can usually figure out if it's still something I want to see in theaters or wait until it hits Redbox.

 

I've been looking for a new golf buggy. I was looking at one that was quite nice looking and relatively cheap. It had good reviews (4.5/5) on the site I was looking on, and only through reading the reviews did I see that it had wheels that were illegal on golf courses (newer buggies all have 'flat' tires, as they do less damage by spreading the weight).

I was amazed that a few people had noted the wheels were illegal but still gave a 4/5 rating - just weird really.

It always pays to read the text.

 

I think this one was a real review.

 

I check reviews every time we get booked into a new venue. I recall the reviews for Robert's Bar in Minneapolis were favorable in some areas, but totally flamed the barmaid for attitude and poor service. The night we were there, though, she was about the only bright spot in a fairly suck-ass night. Even the sound man offered: "Call me before you come back to town, I'll steer you to some cool clubs."

 

If there are reviews available I'll always read them... like when I was booking my holiday in Berlin I read up reviews of the hotels I was looking at. But you have to take it with a pinch of salt and you always half expect the owners have written the really glowing reviews.