A Lesson from the CNET Controversy

Online reviews can be a great resource and help to those of us looking to purchase goods or services. The web has totally added a new component of research material to prospective buyers. Unfortunately, not all reviews are totally accurate. In fact, all reviews are biased in some way as far as I’m concerned. Even if an online review is written based on personal experience—something I’ve always done—it doesn’t necessarily mean the product or service is going to work out the same for you. What it does prove is that the product or service being written about is capable of producing great results—or at least that’s what it should prove.

So how can you tell which online reviews to believe? Well, until recently most probably figured it was safe to stick with the bigger more well know review sites. Turns out, that might not be the case. Apparently, there is some new controversy with CNET—one of the most well-known review sites of tech products. I’m not going to go into details about it here. But if you want to read more specifics, check out the article on Yahoo! Evidently, there may be some question as to how unbiased some of CNET’s reviews are.

So what should you do about online reviews? I think they can be very helpful and I’d certainly recommend you use them in your buying searches. Web hosting probably has one of the largest pool of review sites online—and some of them can be very helpful. Just remember, reviews based on personal experience are preferred, but read the information carefully and make sure what is being presented makes sense to you—because all reviews can contain some kind of bias.

And finally, don’t be swayed too much by the bigger name sites or review sites that attempt to look bigger. Sure, they might contain a gazillion trustworthy reviews—or maybe not!