Four Stars!

Thanks to the Web, anyone with an Internet connection can now publish their opinions of hotels, restaurants, service organizations, retail businesses…even, as I discovered during jury duty-related research, courthouses and prisons. (A one-star Yelp rating of a jail in my hometown scolds, “It only takes one or two people to cause a business, or in this case a facility, to receive a bad mark.”)

Of course, there are potential hazards to making decisions based on the content of online ratings services, as they’re called. Businesses have been known to boost ratings by posting fake reviews. A September 2013 Consumer Reports story pointed out how cumulative scores might be skewed by a business’ willingness to advertise on the review site or to aggressively recruit customers to post positive comments.

Even if none of those shenanigans are taking place, can you take away anything useful from reviews by complete strangers? Entrepreneur Peter Shankman wrote last August that Yelp would in effect die within two years because Yelp users were increasingly realizing the fallibility of reviews by strangers who were possibly being bought off .

Who are consumers more likely to trust? Members of their social networks: family, friends, colleagues.

But even that strategy has a drawback. Who hasn’t gotten conflicting movie reviews from friends? Haven’t you ever loved a restaurant only to hear your significant other vow never to return?

So a brighter idea might be to use reviews and ratings as potential data points rather than defining ones. Step 1: Look for relevant details in reviews. Skip the review that says, “This hotel is absolutely sprawling” and focus on the one that says, “From our room, the lobby was a 15-minute walk away, and the pool was a 10-minute walk over level terrain with two young kids and grandma in tow.” Step 2: Based on your specific needs and preferences, decide if those distances are too far or within reason.

That’s also how we suggest you view this year’s Despite assurances that patient privacy will be protected, some health-care stakeholders are wary about data sharing.