She supplemented her online research during a 24-hour trip to Baltimore, but ultimately she chose an apartment downtown sight unseen, based only on layouts and other materials available online.
Christine Lin had a very different experience. She set up a weekend's worth of appointments to interview potential roommates through Craigslist before she moved here from California to enroll in a graduate program at Hopkins.
But before she did that, she relied on neighborhood recommendations from a graduate student friend who had landed in Baltimore the year before she did.
Although the Web provides unprecedented opportunities for shoppers to exchange experiences, only a handful of survey participants took the time to review the cell phones or music they bought, or comment on the service their real estate agents provided.
But people do pay attention to the reviews they find.
In fact, Lin said she often consults user-generated reviews of products and restaurants on Web sites such as epinions.com or yelp.com. She's just never written one herself. "I'm just really lazy," Lin said.
Evan Siple, 28, of Federal Hill tries to make up for that. He buys many items from Amazon and other online retailers, including groceries and DVDs, and he tries to review the electronics he purchases to assist other buyers.
"If you're going to buy something you're going to end up using a lot, you need to leave a lot of information so that people can weigh their options," he said.
liz.kay@baltsun.com
