Yelp Archive

Reviews site Yelp has announced the launch of a local site for UK residents today. The company notes that over 100,000 visitors from the UK visit Yelp monthly. It will be interesting to see what type of community builds around the UK Yelp and see how it compares to the USA or Canadian versions. I am an infrequent Yelp’er — I write a bunch of reviews but I wouldn’t consider myself part of the Yelp community.

Jemima Kiss of the Guardian has a good review of the Yelp UK launch. The comments on her post suggest that Yelp might have some work to do to win over the UK reviews audience. With Google aggregating reviews, there comes a point where a person can stay in their community and still be seen across the Web. 

Other local UK reviews site we have reviewed include WeLoveLocal and TrustedReviews.

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.

Charles Stubbs, president and CEO of YELLOWPAGES.COM, AT&T, "Our new User Reviews service adds richness and depth to the comprehensive database of local business information already available at YELLOWPAGES.COM, and gives our users another element to consider when choosing the businesses that best meet their needs. This service also delivers terrific value to our advertisers. We've designed a service that allows them to interact directly with reviewers by responding to postings — putting them in the driver's seat in managing their businesses online image."

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.

Really the big question is whether AT&T can create a community. Yelp and TripAdvisor have very strong communities. This is absolutely critical for a reviews site. Users spend hours creating reviews and are willing to do so when they know that the community will benefit. Will YP be able to create this same type of environment or will there be a sparseness of reviews due to lack of community? I think it's a good first step for the new mega giant of the telecom world. I think a more friendly, welcoming design would help to create the community I mentioned above.

In all of the interviews I have conducted, everyone believes customer service is vital to their business. And I believe it is crucial as well. After my documented experiences with Technorati, I decided to randomly pick 10 current web apps and put them to the test! One week ago, I sent each one a very basic e-mail for support. I gave each one a week to reply and below are the responses I received with my comments and a score for each one. Some did well, some did ok, some did poor. Let’s check out the winners and the losers!

The tested apps are in alpha order: Digg, Dogster, Edgeio, Faces, Flickr, MySpace, Skype, Technorati, Youtube

So here are the results! In best to worst order:

Dogster

For my inquiry they provided a form with the following confirmation after submission:

Woof Woof! We got your message.
We’ll definitely be reading it and get back to you within 72 hours (weekend may take a little longer).

Thanks so much for using and loving Dogster.

Bark, bark, bark!

Dogster: for the love of dog!

And their reply came in about 36 hours and included the following:

Allen,

We welcome all dogs from Heinz 57 mutts to pedigreed show dogs.

As for terriers? Here’s our breed list:

1. Airedale Terrier
2. American Hairless Terrier
9. Boston Terrier

Boston Terrier is right there in the number 9 position (alphabetically).

Thanks for loving Dogster. We love you right back!

Woof!

-dogster-

—————————————————————————-
Dogster & Catster: where no one knows you’re a human
dogster.com / catster.com

The following message was sent by “Allen” on Sat, 7 Oct 2006 14:34:00 -0700.

> Hi - Can you tell me if any kind of dog can be registered on dogster? I have > a small boston terrier and wondered if this type is allowed.
>
> Thank you, Allen

Comments: I appreciate both the confirmation of my submission and the funny, witty reply I received. The reply came in a reasonable amount of time. Great job - woof woof!

Digg

Only offered an e-mail address for inquiries, no form. Reply came within 24 hours and it is below:

Anyone can sign on to digg.com. There are topics for everyone weather
you’re interested in technology or world news. If you have any other
questions, please email us.

Thank you,

-The Digg Support Team.

allen wrote:
> Hi - can you tell me if anyone can register to use digg? I am not a techy but would be interested in rating stories in the business columns and sections. Do I need to be a web developer to sign up? Thanks, Allen

Comments: Digg would have been number one except for two small concerns. One is that support is only offered via e-mail, no form. Second is their use of the word “weather” - in this case, it should have been “whether” - so I deduct half a point for these small issues. Great job overall from Digg!

Skype

Skype provided an easy way to contact them. I am not including their reply because it was very, very exhaustive. Suffice to say they answered my question and in case their solution did not work, a way to escalate my issue.

Edgeio

Provided a form with a confirmation that showed what I submitted. I like that kind of confirmation. Reply came in about 24 hours and is listed below.

Yes, that would be an appropriate thing to list on edgeio.

On Oct 7, 2006, at 3:46 PM, wrote:

> To: (removed)
> From: (removed)
> Subject: [support]
>
> Someone left feedback on edgeio with the following information:
>
> email address: (removed)
> edgeio user name:
>
> ip address: (removed)
> cookied user name:
> cookied location: 0
>
> web page: http://www.edgeio.com/
>
> subject: [support]
>
> [description]
>
> ———————————————————————-> —
> hi - can you tell me if i can list old magazines on edgeio? i found a ton of old magazines like Forbes and Fortune and stuff and want > to get rid of them. Thanks, Allen

Matt Kaufman

Comments: Good job on the quick reply, and for including my original question inside the reply. Points deducted for listing all of the techy information inside the reply. As a mainstream application, there is no reason to include things like ip address, cookied user name, location, etc. The average Internet user would have no idea what those things are and would probably only confuse the situation.

Faces

Faces provided an easy way to contact them. Their reply and my original question is listed below.

Hi,
This email has been sent to help you with your problem at faces.com. The problem or question you had is repeated below. If you have further queries please return to the help page.

Currently we have a fairly small upload size restriction on files size - which only allows 8meg at a time - can you split the podcats up into 2 or 3 parts perhaps?

Thanks, Support
www.faces.com
———————————————————–
The question you had is:
———————————–
Member Id : Not available
Received : 10/7/2006 5:17:46 PM
Name : Not available
Email : removed
Subject : Site Problems
Comment : hi - can i upload my podcasts to faces and then put a player on my web site? they are like 20mb size and like 30 minutes each.
thanks, allen
Url : Not specified

UserAgent & IP Address Info
—————————————–
UserAgent : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Ip Address : removed

Comments: Reply came in 4 days, which I guess is still reasonable. I would have liked a confirmation on when to expect the reply. Also - they have included this technical information which has no need to be included and can confuse non-geeks. In the email they state that if I have further queries (whats a query) to return to the help page. Where is the help page and why can’t they include a link to it? A small spelling error “podcats”. They did a good job of appearing human and overall a pretty good job.

Yelp

I had the hardest time finding a way to contact support on Yelp. Once I found it, they “accepted” my request that I submitted. Their reply came within 24 hours and is listed below.

Yes you can review anything with an address, including CVS!

Jeremy

See all my reviews…
http://jeremy.yelp.com

(removed) wrote:
> Can people really write reviews on anything? I saw some reviews on drugstores and wanted to write a review about my favorite CVS location but wondered if that is ok. Please let me know. Thanks, Allen

Comments: Reply came quickly and was well formed. I am deducting points for not being able to find the support form.

Flickr

Flickr provided a reply in about 36 hours and it is below.

Hello,

Thanks for your question.

Please see this answer in our FAQ:

http://www.flickr.com/help/limits/#28

Regards, Monish

Comments: Why couldn’t they just copy the answer into the email. Why should I do the work to go find it? It would have been appreciated if they would have included the applicable FAQ and then perhaps a link to the full FAQ. In addition, they should have included my original request.

MySpace

MySpace accepted my inquiry (written while looking at HORRIBLE banner ads that flash so much, I think I have a disease now) and then replied in 36 hours with the following:

Hello,
If you can’t create an account, we recommend deleting your browser’s cookies and temporary internet files and then close all your browsers and try signing up again.

(Note: Mac users should use Safari or Firefox.)

Make sure you didn’t add any spaces at the end of your email address or verification code.

If someone is using your email address please send us an email from that email address to verify you are the legal owner and we will be able to delete that fake profile.

If you are shown an error message when attempting to create an account, please copy and paste it into the body of your reply email.

If this does not answer your question, please click:
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.contact

Thank you,
MySpace.com

Comments: My inquiry was not included so to some extent I have no idea what they are replying to. In addition, their reply was an automated reply that seems to have multiple answers so I have no idea what actually applies to me. And then they have the nerve to state that if these solutions did not answer my question, I can go back and look at a horrible banner ad and try to fill in the exact same form again.

YouTube

I am not going to paste in their reply because all they did was send me every FAQ they have. I asked if my mother could view the videos using WebTV. Nothing in their 200 line reply offered me anything. They told me basically if none of these 50 suggestions work, I should e-mail them AGAIN and they will look into my question. So who knows how long that entire process would take. I guess all of it is moot now that they are billionaires. Oh well, maybe they can buy some support staff now with their money.

Technorati

Unfortunately, Technorati is at the bottom of this list. I really like their service and so this upsets me but I must report the truth. They did not reply to any of my inquiries. So there is nothing for me to include.

(updated) - I was finally able to contact Liz (the vlog woman) via her Flickr account because there are no contact emails on the Technorati site. She was able to get their customer service person to answer my questions and both her and the cs person apologized and stated that they are swamped with cs e-mails. My suggestion is to provide an immediate automated reply stating that. I would have been a lot more relaxed with them had they said they were swamped. But to receive nothing is to believe they don’t care.

So I am willing to upgrade their score:

(I guess that is still passing in some universities)