What do you think about Yelp.com?

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Permalink Reply by Michael L. Atkinson on January 6, 2009 at 1:53pm

They suck. I hate their business model, not the fact they offer a platform for user-generated reviews. See my blog about them..

Negative reviews are NOT the problem. It's the way they leverage your profile on their platform that sucks. Spend $300-$500 a month and guess what, newly posted reviews (positive or negative) go on top, as they should. Don't pay 'em, and negatives tend to just hang there...hmmm. Yelp and their "greenmail" business model just sucks.

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Permalink Reply by Tony on January 7, 2009 at 6:47am

Wow, that is interesting.....

Thanks for the information.

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Permalink Reply by Rich Reader on October 1, 2009 at 10:49am

Hi Michael,

I read your blog about them.

I'm an online community professional, consulting to restaurants, bars, clubs. I took to heart your complaints about Yelp! so much that I brought those complaints to the table at a discussion on April 22nd in the San Francisco Online Community Report on the occasion of a presentation and discussion led by Yelp! executives.

Yelp was represented by Nish Nadaraja, the community manager, who made a presentation about how the website is run. In particular, I raised your assertion that Yelp Ad Sales people influenced which reviews would float to the top. Nish addressed the issue from a technical perspective, and claimed that sales people cannot manipulate the order of reviews presentation. At the same time, he absolutely kept the door open to receive and investigate all reports.

He said that in any community surrounding a marketplace like the restaurant business there must be members who are simply clients, as well as members who are service providers and clients and potentially/actually advertisers. Thus, the situation for restaurant owners in Yelp could just as easily take place in many other online communities, so it is a classical conflict-of-interest challenge for any community manager.

I also brought up the issue at the Online Community Roundtable in San Jose in May, and the participants largely agreed that all community managers need to be prepared to deal effectively with such incidents and resolve them to the satisfaction of all parties. If they don't, the community can be irretrievably damaged. On the plus side, it helps to guarantee the transparency and continuous improvement of the community.

I had my own Yelp incident with a review that I wrote about Tara's Organic Ice Cream in Berkeley, in which Tara responded by asking why I didn't give her shop 5 stars.

My general approach to Yelp (as a user) is that I look for reviews from other users who have written scores of reviews, while discounting the reviews of those who have written only one or two reviews. Many users do this. We also have to keep an eye open toward the reviews that are written by restaurant owners, employees, and family members. It's not just a problem of ad sales people and a few hard-to-please clients writing sucky reviews. The distortions run in both directions, which means that one must eliminate the outliers caveat emptor.

I also look at the monthly trending of reviews. However, Yelp does not yet report the exact number of monthly reviews for each establishment by month. That makes it hard to see when a slow month has given disproportionate weight to a few reviews over months when there are many reviews. I'd like to see a restaurant have an increasing number of reviews over time, partly as an index of the growth in business. Similarly, I'd like to have some faith in the meaning of the monthly trend line, or at least some comprehension.

Here's the link to my report on WOM-buzz:
Mission-Oriented Online Community Conflict Resolution

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Permalink Reply by Rich Reader on October 1, 2009 at 10:15am

It doesn't have to be a one-way street, although the reviews section of Yelp is not a discussion forum. Their Talk section is a forum, but needs better organization and moderation.

If you receive a negative review, you can respond directly to the reviewer and get more information from them about their experience and why they felt the way that they did. I had a meeting with Nish Nadaraja, the community manager, where we discussed the occasionally leveled charge that Yelp Ad Sales people influenced which reviews would float to the top. I'll attempt to post the video on FohBoh.

Here's the link to my report on WOM-buzz:
Mission-Oriented Online Community Conflict Resolution

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