I love Yelp. For me, it’s one of the few reviewing websites that has stood the test of time. I used to be an avid user of Rotten Tomatoes, Meta-Critic, and Trip Advisor, but after one too many mediocre experiences, I gave them up. My friends are more accurate in these areas, and I wish that more of my friends were on Yelp to share more of their experiences.
Yelp uses (not perfectly) The Wisdom of Crowds. Regardless of the potential biased interpretation of an experience in a business, there is still a huge diversity of knowledge and opinion. There is no centralized “boss” on Yelp encouraging people to give better or worse reviews to businesses. Reviewers are independent to give good or bad reviews without any consequences. However, there are several avenues to receiving awards on Yelp, such as promotions in businesses for “checking in” (e.g. I check in and get a free coffee with my purchase), or the pursuit of becoming “Yelp Elite” where there is the opportunity to attend festivals and promotional events for free.
Pros of Yelp:
- Promotes local businesses.
- Millions of reviews by a diversity of people.
- Studies show that a one star increase on Yelp leads to a 5-9% increase in revenue for local and small businesses.
- There is opportunity to build Yelp community through Yelp Events, messaging, chatting, and letting local businesses promote and host events.
- Reviewers are encouraged to use their real name and link their Yelp account to other forms of social media in order to build trust.
- Negative press regarding Yelp might actually make Yelp more credible. If all businesses are getting good reviews, then the reviews lose credibility.
- There can be a public shaming element when instances of fake reviews appear for businesses. (Yelp Tries to Halt Deceptive Reviews)
I experienced some of these “pros” when I attended a promotional Yelp Elite event in Glasgow, Scotland. The business (Piece) was unveiling a new menu, and was actively seeking Yelpers as a way to gain “free” press. In addition to gaining a little momentum with their new menu, they provided a forum for Yelpers to meet each other and engage with the local business. It may also appear slightly biased, because well, what Yelper is going to give bad reviews to an event with free food and drink? But there is still a risk the business is taking by putting themselves out there to be reviewed. The process reminded me of the Klout presentation (I had never heard of Klout previously), in that businesses give things away in order for their customers to freely evangelize about their business.
Cons of Yelp:
- Constantly under surveillance over review filtering and how it is done. (Yelp Pushes Back Says Allegations It Fixes Reviews are Demonstrably False, and is Referred to as the “Internet Mafia)
- Can be easily infiltrated with fake reviews in that anyone can sign up for Yelp, as many times as they want, under whatever name they want.
- There have been instances of people being paid to write reviews for business. (Yelp Tries to Halt Deceptive Reviews)
- Yelp doesn’t review the reviews often or precisely enough (even though the technology is available), and doesn’t seem to want to change any time soon. (Harvard Business School: Helping Yelp Create More Accurate Reviews)
While Yelp is constantly under investigation regarding fake reviews and unnecessary review removal, it’s still a very good platform for local businesses and local community building. At the very beginning, I mentioned how I wish more of my friends were on Yelp so I could actively see more of their opinions about local anything I might be looking for. If people used Yelp like they use Facebook, they might be able to more easily view the opinion of your friends and then potentially feel more like you have more freedom in how you choose where to shop, eat, and consume media. Or, you may at least feel like you have more say in what is advertised to you when you want it to be advertised to you.
So far, I don’t know of any social media platform using collective intelligence in a way that allows the user in an organized way seek out and find the opinions of their friends, acquaintances, or well-reputed strangers for any topic or business. Yelp is by far the closest, and it’s steadily growing.
You should check out what Foursquare is doing. Particularly as it relates to your last paragraph. Foursquare will immediately pop up tips left by your friends when you check into a place or offer nearby suggestions based on their reviews. Given the more “social” nature of Foursquare, it mitigates some of the concerns of Yelp.
I’ve been wondering about Foursquare. Honestly, I don’t know much about it, or who uses it. I polled a couple of my friends, and one said, “I thought Foursquare was replaced by Yelp.” I’ll check it out, but I think I have even fewer friends using it than Yelp.
I wonder how Yelp will fare with Facebook’s latest ‘Graph Search’. If Graph Search picks up, people will be able to find out what their friends are saying about places and will trust their reviews more than random people on Yelp. I feel that people will have less of an incentive to go to Yelp for reviews unless Yelp figures out how to keep their reviewers coming back and staying loyal. I think this new Facebook feature should have Foursquare and Yelp concerned….
Yelp does actually have some incentive for its reviewers to stay. A lot of people don’t realize that the more involved you become on Yelp, you may reach “elite” status, at which point those local users are invited to free Yelp parties, and may receive free access to local festivals, shows, etc.
Somehow I managed to become a part of this elite crowd, and after some of these events, you definitely want to keep up the reviewing (possibly even hope for a position working for Yelp). It’s a sweet deal.
There are certainly problems with Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc, but I guess I think back to what life was like BEFORE all these services. Trying a new place was akin to a shot in the dark, or maybe 1-2 recommendations. I do think it’s possible to examine the results to get a sense of which reviews (or how many) are fake and which are not. There’s actually a group (from Cornell, I think) that has claimed to be able to do language analysis to be able to tell fake reviews from real ones. Something like real reviews give certain types of details, but fake reviews give another type. I think all of these services will continue to evolve, much like Amazon added “verified” identities/ purchases for reviews, using their data to validate the customer experience.
im a big yelp user too. Mainly for food and restaurants though. When i get to a new city thats the first thing i pull up is yelp to find a spot to eat. i dont know where id be without this App. the wisdom of crowds definitely makes this site work. for the most part the reviews i have read are accurate and i have made relatively good choices. i would definitely agree that sometimes the reviews are skewed by people that choose to throw it off or have just had a poor experience, however, i really enjoy this site and its definitely helped me out.