This is a big change for user-generated review site Yelp, which previously refused to give businesses significant access to its pages. Starting next week, business owners can have more of a voice on the site. [New York Times]
David Lazarius of the Los Angeles Times explains sponsorships on Yelp and what restaurants get for paying the website hundreds of dollars a month.
Mayor Gavin Newsom has declared today Yelp Day in San Francisco. This is the second year the community review site has been deemed worthy of a day of its own by the mayor; here's the text of last year's Yelp Day proclamation. [via Eater SF]
Posted by Ed Levine, September 8, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Randall Stross compared Yelp and Zagat in the New York Times on Sunday. While he correctly noted that Yelp now covers more restaurants than Zagat, and uses this as a launching pad to compare and contrast the two companies, he leaves out the most relevant points. Most notably, he completely whiffs on recent business goings-on in the world of user-generated restaurant reviews.
My first question is what do serious eaters think about both Zagat and Yelp?
And while you ponder that, here's what Stross should have pointed out in his comparison.
Continue reading »
Posted by Robyn Lee, August 5, 2008 at 1:15 PM
When Mary Seaton received negative reviews on user-generated review site Yelp for her business, The Sofa Outlet, Yelp offered to help her out. But only if she paid $350 a month for a business account in which Yelp downplays negative reviews by moving some of them to bottom. However, while positive reviews may be scrutinized and removed, negative reviews are never taken off a business's page. Yelp's practice of extorting businesses that have been negatively reviewed on its website actually isn't a new practice at all. [via Eater]
"Customers have begun threatening to 'Yelp' the restaurant if their demands are not met," says Marsha McBride of Cafe Rouge in Berkeley, California. The San Francisco Chronicle's restaurant critic Michael Bauer looks at the problem of customers threatening to write negative reviews on user generated-review site Yelp in exchange for free food.
Rooz Cafe has placed a NO YELPERS! sticker on its counter in reaction to the commentary on its Yelp listing. Don't know Yelp? It's a review-it-yourself social-networking site that's crazy popular in the Bay Area.
