Lie Detector

Ever wonder how the same restaurant can get a gushingly positive review from one person ("I will name my first-born son Panini because the paninis were so good") and an absurdly angry rant from the next person ("I've had prison food better than this!")? Part of the answer is that not all reviews are legitimate. In some cases, both the very positive and very negative reviews are fakes.

This National Public Radio story discusses how to tell the fake reviews from the real ones.

Questions...

•Which type of reviews do you generally look at more often: expert reviews or reviews by regular folks? Is there any disintermediation going on with online reviews?

•Have you been able to spot reviews that are probably fake? How were you able to tell?

•In a review, do you look more at the number of stars or the text? Which is more important to you?

•What are examples of decisions that you would not make based on an online review?