I’ve been a fan of Yelp for a long time – it’s quickly becoming my go-to site for reviews similar to how I always check TripAdvisor for hotel reviews without ever using Google. Unfortunately my experience with Yelp over the past week has me wondering whether I can trust what Yelp spits out on their SEO-rich business review pages.

Since I am new to Austin, I like to check out reviews for the local businesses (mostly eateries) that I am considering visiting. Yelp seems to have a page for every business in the world so it is an easy to use site compared to other review sites and it also seems like Yelp users have more similar demographics. I use Yelp on my PC and also on my mobile phone and tablet. Yelp helped me find the best pizzeria in Austin when I had a craving for real NYC pizza.

This past week I learned that there’s another side to Yelp — the section on each business profile known as, “filtered reviews”. I always assumed that Yelp had some mechanism in place to weed out spam reviews (e.g. 10 reviews of the same car wash from the same IP address located at the car wash, 14 reviews of Taco Allen all from one IP in India, etc.). You can read more about how Yelp filters reviews on their blog including a cutsiepie video. Claire Cain Miller at the NYT covered the launch of filtered reviews last year.

I’ve needed to go to a few doctors over the past couple of weeks and I like to try to do some research on the doctor before I visit their office. Sadly there’s no ZocDoc here so I have to use reviews sites like Yelp. I plugged in the doctor’s name that I was referred to and everything was very negative. An overall rating below 2 stars and nearly all negative comments. This had me wondering whether I should consider switching my appointment to another doctor. Boy I am glad I went – the experience was amazingly positive and nothing at all like the reviews posted on the Yelp business page.

After reading the reviews, I noticed a tiny text line (see image below) that said “40 filtered reviews” – I can’t remember ever noticing this text before so I clicked the text (which btw does not look like a link). I had to put in a captcha (why?!?) and then I saw 40 reviews that brought this doctor and the office into a much brighter light. About 90% of these filtered reviews are 5-star and the balance was 1- or 2-star reviews. I can’t figure out why these reviews were filtered. My experience with the doctor matched the 90% of the 5-star reviews and none of the reviews displayed on the business profile page.

Home Slice Pizza shows nearly 90 filtered reviews. I get that it’s a very hard job Yelp has – they need to make sure that the overall business score isn’t tainted by competitors, employees, paid reviewers, etc. It’s probably not that most fun job out there.

I am ok with Yelp filtering reviews but they need to make the link to view ALL reviews more prominent. A tiny line of text at the bottom of the page means most people will never see this option and will only go by what Yelp spits out on the business profile page – just like I’ve been doing for the last few years. At a minimum, why not add the filtered reviews link on the top of the page?

Additionally, offer an option in the user profile to set a flag to always show ALL reviews and change the background color on filtered reviews. Naturally it would be great for Yelp to clearly state why a review was filtered but obviously that would help those who want to influence an overall score one way or the other. I almost think this modification should be the default for all Yelp users.

Until Yelp does a better job disclosing that they hide reviews, maybe they should consider changing their tagline from, “Real People, Real Reviews” to, “Real People, Some of the Real Reviews”.

Find more stories about: Reviews, Yelp

When I was a youngster, I busted my butt at the supermarket every week. And about once a quarter, I bought the new Nike Air Jordan sneakers. These sneakers were crazy expensive and my mother would yell at me (mainly because people were robbed for their Jordans in NYC) that I shouldn’t spend so much on sneakers. But I remember that even though they were expensive, there was something magical about wearing them. I can’t dunk a ball (though I was good at the three) but walking around Brooklyn in the sneakers just made me feel a bit cooler than if I bought just the basic sneakers.

When people ask me why the iPhone has been so popular, I reply by saying, “it’s the white headphones.” I only owned an iPhone for three weeks when it first launched because there was no AT&T signal in my apartment building in Manhattan. When I returned the iPhone, I went with a Samsung ACE which has Windows 6 Mobile. The phone has been great, it handles email great, phone calls with Sprint have always been rock solid and I like the keyboard. It’s a great utility phone, but it doesn’t have the white headphones.

I’ve taken two flights with Virgin Atlantic in their Upper Class service (I used points back in the day when the points from Delta transferred – it was sweet!). The experience from the second I arrived at JFK and LHR was absolutely amazing. Virgin Mobile has tried to copy the “look” of Virgin Atlantic but I am not sure the experience offered is the same.

I am not an Apple fanboy, but there is no doubt that when you buy an Apple product or visit one of their stores, it’s like slipping your feet into a pair of Air Jordans. I think Apple has realized that making a phone is easy, it’s making an experience that is much harder. These mobile devices are attached at our hips, in a purse, a fanny pack, or a belt clip night and day. And so the experience is so important today with technology. I bought an Apple iPod Touch during the holidays on Amazon and just opening the packaging made me think the device was made for the experience.

When I talk about experience, it combines the hardware, the software, and the support. With that said, I’d like to share some thoughts on my first 24 hours using an Android device. I plan to write another review after 30 days of usage assuming the data service eventually is re-activated. Assuming that I like Android over the next 30 days, I will probably move to a higher-end device from HTC, Samsung or Motorola (I am hoping I can get some test devices and provide some reviews).

I bought the LG Optimus V at Target this week while the phone is on sale for $109. The purchase went fine – I picked up a $25 top-up card for the first month of service (apparently there is also a 80-cent charge for 911).

I came back to the office, opened the box, started the charging process. I turned the phone on and went to the Virgin Mobile website to get activated. The process seemed to work ok – you signup online and then click the activate button on the phone. But the activate button kept giving me an error. I figured maybe it takes some time to get the service to register the phone – I waited two hours and then called customer service which is offshore. The person I spoke with basically told me there must be something wrong and he asked me for the ESN number and then told me he would create a ticket for a manager to call me back and that it would be 72 hours before I heard from the manager. I waited another two hours, called back again and was told basically the same thing. I kept trying to make the phone work – I want to play with this damn thing now!

One of my friends told me to talk to Virgin Mobile support on Twitter. So I sent a message to the VMUCare account. I quickly realized that the person monitoring the account was replying to comments that were sent 12 hours ago! This will be of no help to me I thought (I was right, she sent me a message over 12 hours after I asked for help).  I called back at 10pm and another service person actually got the phone working – turns out the ESN number was entered incorrectly. She fixed the number and in a minute the phone was active and I was online.

The LG Optimus V device is nice – it’s lightweight, fits in my pants pocket and has a nice screen. If I decide to stay with Android as my main device, I may go for a device with a bit larger screen but overall the build quality on this Optimus is good. And for a $100, no-contract phone, it’s the best on the market.

So I started to play – clicking buttons, trying to learn how the phone works, where the apps are located, etc.  I downloaded the Twitter app from the Android Market which was easy (I had to sign-in to my Google account which seemed to load up my Gmail automatically which I found a bit odd).

The only issue I couldn’t seem to figure out was where the apps went after you installed them. On my iPod Touch, the apps just appear right on the screen – they don’t behave the same on Android. I had to install shortcuts (reminded me of Windows) to get the apps to appear. This morning my friend Corsin taught me that there is an apps button on the main home screen which houses all of the apps you download and everything that Virgin Mobile loaded on the phone to begin with.

The big issue currently is that Virgin Mobile’s 3G service has been down nationwide for over 24 hours.

I can’t get online at all. You can see in the screenshot at the top of this post – I had to use my camera to take a picture of the phone. There is no notice on the Virgin Mobile Twitter account, the person who runs the VMUCare Twitter account keeps replying that the service is down. There is no notice of the outage on the Virgin Mobile website. Why haven’t they sent a SMS to every customer with a status update?

After only 24-hours of usage, Android feels like a utility device – everything works great but it’s not as smooth as using the iPod Touch (I assume the same smoothness is available on the iPhone). For example, I wanted to take a simple screenshot showing the networking error. Apparently there is no way to make a screenshot without either loading some software or rooting your phone. On the iPod Touch you click a button and bing you have a screenshot. What normal person wants to root a phone or install software to make a screenshot?

There’s nothing wrong with a utility device, I’ve been using one for over three years now and am very happy. Perhaps the happy balance is Android for work where utility is ok, and iPod Touch for home where experience is more important than utility.

I am hopeful that Virgin Mobile will get this 3G service working soon so I can continue to test and play with this device. I also certainly hope they will be crediting me and all of the other Android customers for this outage.

Assuming Virgin’s 3G service comes back before SXSW begins, I plan to try out the device during the conference and will leave my WinMo phone at the office. This should be a great test to see how I like using an Android device as my main mobile device.

Find more stories about: Android, Apple, Google, iphone, iPhone 4, mobile, Reviews, Virgin Mobile

I will admit that I don’t know much about pregnancy except some work with the material that goes inside baby diapers. A new site aims to offer advice on a variety of pregnancy situations with data provided by others. Wiser Pregnancy, created by the Wiser Together group,  provides scientific answers to the following question, “What others have done in my situation?”

Instead of the typical Q&A site which provides a general answer to pregnancy questions, Wiser Pregnancy allows you to select who you are using a variety of sliders and then the resulting answer is targeted to your selections.

The site also offers a tag cloud (as seen below) that can be refined on a variety of categories including pregnancy complications, symptoms, tests and birth preparation. I’m not usually a fan of tag clouds as they are too ”techy” but in this case it works well. Content can be filtered by pregnancy week and trimester. In addition to the customized content, Wiser Pregnancy offers a variety of content in a traditional online format.

My two suggestions for Wiser Pregnancy are:

• Get some doctors on board – it will give the site’s content even more credibility
• Remove some of the sub-forums until the forum grows in usage – it’s better to have 2-3 sub-forums that are heavily used rather than 100 sub-forums with 0 posts

One of the new baby sites (Kidmondo, Baveo, TotSpot, LilGrams, etc.) should partner with WiserPregnancy as the audience is a perfect tie-into the baby sites. Get the expectant parents into the system before they give birth. 

Wiser Pregancy is based in Washington, D.C.

Find more stories about: Reviews, startups, Wiser Pregnancy, women

We first covered NY-based Lil’Grams back in November 2007 when they launched a private beta of their baby service. Today the so-called baby book for modern parents, Lil’Grams, goes live. Messages posted on the service by parents are called “grams” and are sent to the network that the parents setup. Lil’Grams is one of the nicest looking web services I’ve seen in a long time – this is especially important considering how much time a parent will spend inside the service.

Lil’grams pushes the grams to the network in the way the people in the network wish to receive them. I spoke with co-founder Gregarious Narain who explained that some people might want email notifications, others may want messages on Facebook and (gasp) some might even want Twitter direct messages.

There are a variety of grams including:

• media gram – for a photo or video
• food gram – “hey look little billy kept his cheerios down”
• word gram – “mom check it out billy said his first word – twitter!”
• story gram – “billy went for a walk today in the park and ate a hot dog”

We’ve covered a bunch of baby services including Kidmondo, Baveo, babyZbook and TotSpot. Lil’Grams is offering only paid plans with no free option. Most of the other services offer a free option and monetize with advertising, affiliate revenue or by partnering with other services that charge a fee. As I mentioned to Gregarious, it will be interesting to see if the other baby services follow suit with paid plans. Just like in other industries, someone always has to be first and then the others typically follow along.

Pricing starts at $29/year for 1 kid and goes up to $49/year for 4 kids and some additional options. I guess the Octomom would need 4 of the 4 kid accounts.

Find more stories about: Lil'Grams, nextNY, NYC, Reviews, social media, Social Networking, startups

Whether serious or for fun, there are times when you need quick A/B feedback. For example: Do you prefer plain bagels or poppy seed?; Do you use Twitter?; or Is design A or I better for posting scraped content?.

PickFu is a new website that offers a quick way to get A/B feedback. You setup a question (an example of Mac or PC is displayed below) and then the PickFu community replies to the question. You can either make a question public and have the community respond/listing in the question directory or make it private where you must share a link with those people who you want to see the results.

They offer a page with the current demographics of their responders which seems pretty diverse. The only question that’s missing is location – I’d want to know where the responders are when testing an application. The responders answer the questions via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

Each question posted on PickFu costs $5 for 50 responses. What would be great is to be able to select the audience that will see the question in cases where you want to test against a specific audience (e.g. people over 60 with no college degree, women under 21 in Australia). Perhaps an extra fee gets you audience targeting.

Find more stories about: analytics, Insights, Reviews, startups

Found via the NY Tech mailing list, here’s something I haven’t seen before. It’s called Swaxy (might be considered NSFW)  and they sell tech products. What makes Swaxy different than the other sites selling tech products is that each product comes along with a video of a woman in a bikini “promoting” the item. Swaxy describes their service as. “Beautiful hot girls, great cool gadgets and amazing prices.”

I can only assume the site is real as they have a checkout for purchases. There are five “Swaxy girls” currently and they note that they are looking for more girls who want to win prizes and make money. Swaxy isn’t going to get me away from Amazon or NewEgg for my tech purchases. I honestly don’t know what to make of this so please leave your thoughts in the comments. 

Here’s a video of one of their products for sale (might be considered NSFW):

Find more stories about: Reviews, startups

A new aggregator has launched today named StartupTicker. The idea behind StartupTicker is to aggregate startup news from around the world. It’s a really simple website – just a listing of the latest posts on the startups that they track. I’ve found it to be a great way to find stories to share on CN. 

Founder (and good friend) Darren Stuart tells me that 1,000 startups are currently in the aggregator with more being added everyday. Apps for the iPhone and Android mobile devices are coming soon. You can follow the service on Twitter and Friendfeed as well.

What’s nice about StartupTicker is that all startups are on the same playing field – valley darling status doesn’t mean extra coverage. If you have a startup, you can submit your blog here. I’m not sold this could be a business by itself, but it could be a good way to get people into Darren’s network where he can push other apps in the future.

Find more stories about: blogs, Reviews, startups, StartupTicker

The founders of new NYC-based Hapnin (pronounced happenin) describe the service as a, “hyper local, real time, things to do platform.” The goal is to help you figure out what to do right now. The service is currently only available in NYC although there are plans to expand. Basically the service is an aggregator of things to do from local papers and a variety of other sources.

The Hapnin team is working with a variety of newspapers and bloggers to place widgets on their sites which will drive traffic to Hapnin and to the content sources. Users can contribute events into the Hapnin system as well.

Find more stories about: Hapnin, nextNY, NYC, online video, Reviews, startups, Video, videos

Logitech has announced the launch of a new video calling product today named Vid. Here’s how Logitech describes the Vid service, “Logitech dramatically simplifies video calling with Vid by offering a streamlined setup and a simple, intuitive interface dedicated to video calling. In fact, you can set up Vid in fewer than half the steps required by the major instant-messaging programs.”

Basically you install an application and then when you want to video call someone, you send them an email with an invitation to video chat. I guess that means you need to figure out when your friend or family member is around  for the chat. Logitech says they made the application as easy-to-use as possible.

The service is free for Logitech webcam owners; others can use the service for free for 30 days and then they are required to purchase a Logitech webcam.

I guess I am confused – Logitech makes out like it’s hard to make a video call today. I make a number of video calls using Skype and it couldn’t be easier. With Skype I know when my buddies are online and when I start a call with them I can click the “start video” button. That’s it. How does using yet another piece of software and having to send out emails versus just seeing my buddies online make it easier? I am also not forced to use a Logitech webcam – something my newly refurbished Dell laptop does not have.

I’ve been playing with TinyChat over the past couple of weeks and it too looks super easy for video conferencing. With over a dozen people using their webcams, the service was solid and no real lag was seen. Using TinyChat couldn’t be easier – there is a large button that says start conferencing – click it and your video and/or audio starts. That’s it – they don’t ask what type of webcam you are using. Mashable’s Pete Cashmore announced earlier this week that they will be using TinyChat for the new Mashable video lounge.

If Logitech wants to get into the video conferencing and calling game, perhaps they should acquire TinyChat.

Find more stories about: Reviews, Skype, social video, startups, TinyChat

This morning on Fox Business, the CEO of BetterWorldBooks discussed their business model and current financial status. I had never heard of BetterWorldBooks but the idea sounds very interesting. Basically BetterWorldBooks takes old books and sells them online. When they sell a book they donate the proceeds to literacy groups on four continents. The call the business a “social enterprise”.

On their FAQ page they outline how they get the books they sell, “Books collected by Better World Books come from two primary sources: the over 1800 college and university campuses on which we run textbook drives and nearly 1400 libraries and thrift stores that send us discarded and donated books.”

The CEO noted that up until now they mostly sold the books on eBay and Amazon. They are investing this year in building the BetterWorldBooks.com site and are hoping to sell the books directly to the public. You can also purchase a carbon offset for your book shipping.

The company expects to see revenues of $31 million in 2009.

Find more stories about: BetterWorldBooks, Reviews, startups

During NY Entrepreneurship Week, I was in New Work City and two women came into New Work City (our coworking space) looking for Jeevan Padiyar (who is part of NYCENT) to confirm their business plan had gotten submitted. In the course of helping them resolve this issue, I learned about their company and efforts – and was intrigued by the two women, Nicole Basabe and Alma Sehovic, and their incredible energy. If every entrepreneur in NY had these ladies smarts and drive, I am certain NY Tech and Entrepreneurship will life NYC to new heights.

As Nicole told me, Tribal Societe is “a online global bazaar whose concept is as fashion forward and green as the company is socially responsible and its products are a la mode”. What I took from the “pitch” was that TS is a portal for creating another channel for entrepreneurs in other lands (in this case Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, South Africa to name a few) deliver natural accessory products to the US and international market.

Nicole, who was born in Manhattan, but raised in Ecuador and Miami, got an early start at entrepreneurship – starting and successfully growing her first trading company at age of 20. After spending 8 years on her business, she took someones “advice” and decided to get an MBA at NYU Stern, thinking that the financial sector was where it was at.

At Stern, Nicole met Alma, a former banker who was looking to become an entrepreneur. As the two of them spoke, Alma convinced Nicole to return to her entrepreneurial roots and launch TS.

What makes TS different from something like Etsy?

Nicole talked about her passion for the local cultures in Ecuador. With her affection and strengths in fashion and marketing, she realized that while there was an amazing source of beautiful artisan work in Ecuador, there was an appalling lack of access and distribution channels for Ecuadorians to the US and international markets. One of the stories she told me was about tagua, a wood-like material that feels more like ivory than wood, and used to be what buttons were made out of until plastic substitutes made them “expensive”. Now, with logistics and telecoms, the price of tagua has come down – and the products made from it are absolutely gorgeous.

Additionally, Nicole and Alma feature various artisans and artists on their site and promote/showcase these products through the web and through retail merchandising as they move forward. In addition, Tribal Societé also donates a portion of its proceeds to the Global Fund for Women, keeping with their mission of giving back to the communities of the developing world.

The site, launched about 60 days ago, has already turned a profit and demand is beginning to grow.

Why are you telling us about them?

Yes, there is no major technology underlying their business model (heck, all the products are handmade by artisans in developing countries!) and the e-commerce model is nothing new. But, the energy I saw from the two women and the drive they have made me decide that an article on them was worth time to point them out and allow for others to discover.

Disclaimer: I met with TS to see how I could help them, and have taken no remuneration – aside from their gift bag at their launch event.

Find more stories about: eBay, Etsy, Reviews, Sanford Dickert, startups

If you are as old as I am, you might remember the days of Fedex’ing comps back and forth from designer/agency to client for approvals. The process was long and expensive and, many times, took some of the “oomph” out of the team waiting for either a signoff or feedback on more items to change.

In these current times, a variety of applications have appeared to make website and document reviews easier. There’s ProofHQ based in the UK, ConceptShare out of Canada, and Argentinian-based ColaabFlow.

A new feedback application has hit the private beta scene recently named Notable. Notable describes their service as, “Quickly and easily give feedback on design, content, and code on any page of a website or application without leaving your browser. Notable helps your team collaborate through visual feedback on screenshots, via a chaos-free process so that everyone can express their opinion.”

There is also a browser plugin which allows you to bring any webpage into Notable for group review and annotation. This can be helpful when analyzing the competition with your team. I like how they build permissions into the system which allow for certain team members to see the designs at certain times. Notable also offers a historical dashboard which can be used to “remember” decisions from previous reviews.

Monthly plans range from $44-119 and Notable offers a free account which is limited to three users and one workspace.

Also…have a look at our CreationFlow, ProofHQ and ConceptShare coverage.

Find more stories about: Notable, Reviews, San Francisco, startups

This morning I met with Seattle-based TeachStreet and company CEO Dave Schappell and CTO Daryn Nakhuda. The service is described as, “a dynamic online community that brings motivated learners and talented teachers together.” I compared it to ZocDoc but for teachers instead of doctors. The easiest way to describe TeachStreet is that it’s a marketplace for teachers and students to come together for learning.

Currently TeachStreet has several U.S. cities setup including Seattle, San Francisco, New York and a few other cities. There are a wide variety of learning types on TeachStreet including music, language and shockingly there are teachers listed for Twitter.

TeachStreet uses a team in the Philippines who travel the Web looking for teachers of various subjects. TeachStreet then creates profiles in the TeachStreet system and contacts the teachers to take over the profile. It’s a pretty interesting tactic to get more profile pages. Dave did note that they prune profiles if they can’t get in contact with the teachers.

In the video below, Dave and Daryn discuss what TeachStreet is, how it works and how they plan to generate revenue. We also discuss the Seattle startup scene.

Find more stories about: online video, Reviews, startups, TeachStreet, Video, videos

Last week we posted a demo of job blog service JobsForBlogs. Today I’ve found another service that aims to help online job seekers. Brand-Yourself describes their service as an online reputation manager for job applicants.

Brand-Yourself offers a dashboard where you can monitor how you are being perceived across the Web. The service also offers a portfolio manager which is basically a site creator and manager. There’s a recommendation engine which provides guidance on how to improve your online reputation. There are SEO options to help with obtaining better rankings for your name. What I like about the site offering is that you can use a name.com which will allow you to move the site in the future with no redirect issues. 

Brand-Yourself also offers some career tips and a blog for the job seeker. The site seems to indicate that there is a membership fee after the first 30 days free although I can’t find any information about the pricing.

It looks like the concept for Brand-Yourself started in late 2007 and the initial site launched in mid-2008.

Find more stories about: job boards, jobs, nextNY, NYC, Reviews, startups

PetSite is a new Zurich-based startup that aims to create a pet community. I don’t have any pets (except for the rats in the subway) but I know that those with pets believe they actually talk and so forth. PetSite is a social networking site for pets similar to Dogster/Catster. PetSite is available in a number of languages including English.

Each pet gets a profile page (like MySpace) where the pet can “talk”. The pet categories include dogs, cats, birds, horses, fish, rabbits, rodents (??), reptiles and ferrets.

This week’s featured pet is “Pepe” the cat – displayed to the right. Here’s how Pepe describes himself, “Hey there. I just wanted to introduce me quickly :). my name is Pepe and i live in Zurich, Switzerland in a nice apartment together with my brother Pepper. We are both 2 years old and love to sleep – play – eat – sleep every day (in this order). I will post some news from time to time here.” Pepe has a bunch of friends which include a dog, and a horse.

The pet profiles page also includes what the pets first day was like, what the pet enjoys doing, and things the pet likes/doesn’t like. Pepe notes he likes, “I  love to play with small balls, fake mice, my brother and everything else that i can catch.”.

Petsite also has polls and voting for the pet of the week. The site appears to be currently supported via advertising.

Find more stories about: Dogster, PetSite, Reviews, startup, Switzerland