Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme?

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/02/26/real-people-real-reviews-real-extortion-scheme/

by kolosy • 16 years ago

43 39 16 years ago

blogs.wsj.com

brk• 16 years ago

I've deleted the Yelp app from my iPhone. It seemed like a good idea early on, but I don't feel that I can trust the results any more, and it's not worth the trouble.

It's a bummer because I travel a lot for work, so it was nice to be able to find local businesses.

kolosy8• 16 years ago

i've found locale-specific sites to always be better. unfortunately that does require knowing what they are if you travel.

tptacek3• 16 years ago

It's really too bad Google didn't buy them; I don't fundamentally trust Google that much more, but I do trust that Google doesn't care more about the pennies it would get from hard-selling small business than it does about the avalanche of cash it gets selling advertising to everyone.

There is, however, a special place in hell reserved for the people whose business model revolves around squeezing mom and pop businesses. It is an endless Wal Mart, stretching as far as the eye can see, inhabited by zombie greeters armed with 24-can value packs of flaming caustic Dow distinfectant spray.

kolosy8• 16 years ago

you know - these rumors were already flying by then... wonder if they had any impact on the outcome.

jrockway5• 16 years ago

There is, however, a special place in hell reserved for the people whose business model revolves around squeezing mom and pop businesses.

I don't know why mom-and-pop businesses should get a free pass on everything. They seem to think that because running a small business is not particularly profitable, that they shouldn't have to pay taxes, they shouldn't have to provide customer service, they shouldn't have reasonable hours, and that I should worship them for providing me with such a valuable service.

I like local businesses, but it was nice to see the last recession kill some of the crappy ones off.

(The ones I frequent that have good ratings on Yelp are the ones that deserve good ratings. The people working there tend to be super-nice, and that makes people want to rate them highly. The places with low ratings deserve the low ratings.)

arohner• 16 years ago

Can anyone recommend an alternative?

ilovecomputers2• 16 years ago

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ http://www.dopplr.com/ http://www.zagat.com/

Still, yelp is very useful, but if you don't want to use it out of principle (for the little guys!), you can use the sites above.

mclin• 16 years ago

How about ask someone in the neighborhood.

I've had good experiences going to new area and asking locals where I should eat. People take a lot of pride in their neighborhoods and are more than happy to help.

lukev2• 16 years ago

Even if there were some improprieties going on...If it was empirically useful, for you, why stop using it? This behavior would probably harm Yelp's business clients far more than their users.

Or do you feel is was important to make a statement?

evanrmurphy• 16 years ago

If Yelp is a sort of monopoly, then users' standards for its usefulness is a low bar, since they'll be comparing it to nothing rather than to a better alternative. (And before users have reason to suspect any foul play at Yelp - as they now do - it's more difficult for better alternatives to gain users' attention.)

rmorrison2• 16 years ago

There is definitely room in the market for a new Yelp, one that is trusted and won't erase bad reviews. I'd like to see something where reviews decay over time though, similar to the HN frontpage. Once a review is "off the frontpage" long enough, it shouldn't be publicly accessible anymore. This would allow small businesses to regain their online reputation after a bad period.

Anyway, too bad for Yelp that there isn't somebody in the gov't they could pay $300/month to make this bad lawsuit go away...

bugs• 16 years ago

Reviews aren't meant to decay quickly, sure a restaurant could improve over time but many do not and creating online accounts or hiring people for fake reviews is most likely easier and cheaper.

rmorrison2• 16 years ago

I'm not saying that they need to decay quickly, just that there should be some notion of decay on reviews. Reviews from last year are not as important as those from last week, especially for a food establishment. You're right though, there does have to be protections in place against gaming too.

The problem is though, that every company will get some 1-star reviews, and there has to be some mechanism for them to get erased (eventually). This mechanism should be open, clear, and well known, not $300/month to the rating company. Otherwise, once a long-running, good company gets some critical mass of negative/crazy customers leaving 1-star reviews, they'd have to close or rename or something in order to get back that unfairly lost traffic.

tedunangst• 16 years ago

Except for all the people who read the bad reviews, then write their own bad reviews without even going to the restaurant. I gave up on Yelp long ago after realizing that many of the reviews could not possibly be written by people who had eaten there.

rapind• 16 years ago

The big problem with these type of review sites is that it's pretty difficult to guarantee review authenticity. A competitor could post a bad review of your business, you could post a shiny review of your own business, nimrods who've never purchased anything from you can write a bad review, etc.

When there's more money involved, and when the business community being reviewed is more specific and defined it has proven to be very useful and successful. I.e. Angie's List.

Anonymous web reviews were useful once upon a time before the web grew up, and marketers started gaming the system en masse.

What I'd pay for is a sort of premium search tool that guarantees the authenticity of everything it serves up.

emmett• 16 years ago

Why do you think Yelp is actually erasing bad reviews? It seems most likely that this is sour grapes from business that are unhappy with poor reviews, rather than any wrongdoing on Yelp's part.

newhouseb2• 16 years ago

http://www.yelp.com/myths

SourPatch• 16 years ago

How long ago was that put up?

newhouseb2• 16 years ago

oh i dunno, a year ago probably?

kolosy8• 16 years ago

(ot) any particular reason the title of this was changed?

allenbrunson• 16 years ago

your original title was editorializing. it's not cool for the submitter to decide how people should feel about an article.

kolosy8• 16 years ago

fair enough.

ilovecomputers2• 16 years ago

Yelp's response: http://officialblog.yelp.com/2010/02/lady-justice-needs-a-la...

Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme?

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