Today Yahoo Tech blogger Christopher Null writes about Why User Reviews are Worthless. While I’m not usually one of his readers, this was something that caught my eye.

Null says that when it comes to internet user reviews, the conventional wisdom that says more people give negative reviews than positive. According to him, many products receive high (sometimes perhaps artificially high) reviews. This can make it more difficult to choose the stand-out products from the crowd of wannabes.

I’ve bought a number of products online and I’ve seen some of both extremes. I’ve seen “firewall five” star reviews for products that should have been rated lower, but I’ve also seen some things (services, businesses, restaurants, apartments, etc) get some unfairly bad reviews from some folks who either had bad experiences or were simply haters.

So how do we tell the difference? Are user reviews worthwhile? My advice — before you make your big purchase online do all your research.