Yelp

As user-generated content and review sites become more popular and take on mainstream appeal (see Google paying for business directory info), will we start to see businesses who opt-out from being reviewed? Yes, says one coffee shop in Oakland, California.

Greg speaks about an experience he had the Cafe Rooz where a sign said that Yelp'ers are not welcome. After speaking with cafe management, he noted, "What I was told, in a nutshell, is that the café staff has encountered a stream of would-be critics “with attitude,” predisposed to take issue with or be critical of the business. Whether or not this is a correct perception, there are many more outlets (Yelp being only one) for customers and consumers to voice opinions about businesses on the Internet. And there’s little most of these businesses can do about it, for better or for worse."

The listing is still on Yelp and is relatively positive overall. While I can understand their fear about bad reviews affecting their business, wouldn't it be better to work on correcting the issues that are mentioned? The business says they prefer any issue be brought to management's attention before posting online. I do believe that this is the best course of action.

And one thing this draws attention to is how each of us differ in what is good service vs. bad service. What is acceptable in one region of the country, might not in another. I would love to see a review site that tells me something about the user providing the review -- age, income, gender, lifestyle - so I can put a frame of reference to a review I read. This is especially important when looking at hotel reviews.

And lastly, how will video change the way reviews are handled. Will be interesting to watch, especially as the big players get into the game.

Earlier this week I posted a column titled, "Google kills Yelp." The feedback has really been strong on this one! Some saying that, yes, Google will kill Yelp (and the other local review sites) but most saying that Yelp will live on and continue to grow. I love Yelp. I use Yelp for finding information about a local business before I would ever think to Google it.

Mashable followed-up with "Google Maps Local Reviews: 8 Big Losers" where James notes eight local reviews services that might be losers after Google dominates. His eight include: Yelp (cn coverage), welovelocal (cn coverage), Angie’s List, Zipingo, InsiderPages, Touch Local, MojoPages and TrustedPlaces.

One of the posts that stuck out to me was by Stephan Uhrenbacher, Qype CEO. Qype provides local reviews in a bunch of European countries with a large percentage of users in the United Kingdom and Germany. Check out his post titled, "Never compete head to head with Google." on the Qype blog and here are some excerpts:

Will Qype be successful? To answer this question, you have to take a closer look at our business. We are in the business of building a local community of people who have something meaningful to say. We try our best to separate signal and noise. We actively support our community. We solve conflicts. This the expensive part of our business. We invested a lot of our resources to get our community going in Germany and are planning to achieve this in the UK.

We at least find it not easy to convince visitors that it is a rewarding experience to contribute to Qype. The reward comes later from the community, in form of recognition, feedback, etc. And this is what makes us grow. There is no recognition element on Google Maps. So for the moment, I think the review feature on Google Maps will not be a huge threat.

Look, the truth is that anytime you are in a business, offline or online, someone bigger can appear at any minute. It's your job to continue to differentiate yourself from the others. Competition is a good thing. Qype, Yelp and the others are working their angles and I think we will see even stronger products appearing over the balance of the year. I have always been a fan of review sites and look forward to the next generation of reviews. Who will create the first video reviews site?

Google, the company that keeps on giving, has launched a new feature as part of their maps/local service. You can now write a review about a local business. They have offered links to other review sites in the past, but now you can offer up your own thoughts on the pizzeria down the block or when the dry cleaner shrunk your best nightie.

So will this hurt sites like Yelp? Yes and no. Yes to new sites that don't have the "cred" yet. No to Yelp because the Yelp community is a tightly-knit one. I am sure that at the smaller local review startups, there were some earthquakes today while at Yelp HQ, they were still playing foosball.

The reviews option works well from my limited testing this afternoon. I guess a question would be... how many people use Google maps to search for a needed business. I use the maps feature when I want to find something I already know I am going to. But it will be nice to get a quick view on thoughts on the places I am already going to.

Another thought - is this the first time that Google is allowing user-generated content on their main service offerings? Will users want to write reviews on Google? Currently there are too many clicks to even see that you can write a review. Will the casual user even know it's there? Too early to tell but it will be interesting to look at the numbers of written reviews over the first period.

Continuing my LOCAL theme of the day, LeeAnn at Hitwise posted some interesting metrics about some of the local engines. She shows that for the past 6 months, Yelp traffic is up 91%! and InsiderPages (which was just sold this week) up 34% while Judy's Book traffic remained pretty flat.

Her last comment hits the nail on the head:

Based on traffic to Local.com, Yahoo! Local and Live Local Search, it does not appear that interest in local search is increasing, but the substantial growth in Yelp's traffic indicates that the social networking/local search combo is an effective means of engaging users around local content. The demographic and lifestyle differences between Yelp's user base and that of other local search sites are quite interesting, and merit another post - look for one next week.

Why does Yelp do so well? It's easy. They cater to the high-end techies. The design, the feeling also play into it. But what else is it? C'mon now boys and girls, I have said this a million times. It is the community. Loads of sites have user generated content but no community. Yelp has a community and when you have that, you have gold.

Spend 30 minutes on Yelp and then the other local search/reviews sites. There is a different feeling that you get on Yelp. When you design your web app, think about this. Community is key for so many and without it, you really have a tough hurdle to climb.

Can a wiki play in this market? It's too early to tell but Wikia sure wants a piece of that pie.

AT&T, owner of YellowPages.com, today announced it has rolled out User Reviews to its national site, enabling consumers to share opinions on local and national businesses from caterers and pool cleaners to jewelers and pet groomers. From AT&T: The service allows consumers who register with the site to rate businesses from one to five stars, with five stars representing an "exceptional" rating. Site visitors can also write original text recapping their experience with businesses.

Clearly this is a move to compete with other local reviews sites like Yelp (cn review). Where Yelp seems to target the younger set, my bet is that YellowPages will try to reach the more mainstream, non-Web 2.0'ish crowd. It will be interesting to watch if businesses try to spam their reviews like is done many times on TripAdvisor. More discussion inside.

Yelp is a local search and reviews site providing thousands of reviews from a pharmacy to a McDonalds.