rogerd - 2:49 pm on Jan 30, 2008 (gmt 0)

Reviews for rapidly evolving products are tough - it's hard to build critical mass.

Reviews that appear to be honest should be allowed to stand. A preponderance of bad reviews for a product suggests that the product should be dropped, improved, or perhaps marketed in a way that causes less user disappointment.

There's little doubt, though, that some review spammers are getting more clever and harder to spot.

Accumulating reviews of very costly items is difficult, too. A consumer is likely to buy only one 60" plasma TV for quite a few years, so he won't have much of a review history for that product category. In addition, review quality can be a bit iffy - the typical consumer doesn't have much to compare with when commenting on picture quality, etc. (Assuming it's not horrible in some way.) So, you might have one consumer who says "great picture!" and a more savvy AV buff who provides a detailed list of the shortcomings of the TV's picture quality compared to the top-of-the-line Sony. Both reviews can be helpful to the purchaser, IMO.