Week 8, thing 19. Yelp!!!

Hello! This time my assignment ( which I chose to accept) was to pick one of the Web 2.0 Awards nominees and explore it. Then I am to write a post and describe this site.

I chose Yelp . Yelp is an online community city guide that lets people review businesses such as restaurants, bookstores, dance clubs and pretty much everything else. It contains As soon as I clicked on it it knew where I was, which was both convenient and a little scary. ( remember a few weeks ago , where my mind was blown? There is no such thing as privacy anymore!) Fortunately, it's a review site, so instead of hunter killer droids being sent to my location it just assumed I was interested in the closest big city. There are plenty of locations! I think Maryland has about 7 locations listed.

The premise of yelp is that everyone trusts their friends ( and sometimes random strangers) opinions over advertising. So yelp lets real people give reviews. Now I am not so naive that I do not think that some "shills" aren't out there trying to steer people their way but Yelp apparently makes an effort to keep that kind of thing to a minimum. They even have a guide to business owners to tell them the DOs and DON'Ts of using the site such as don't review your own business anonymously but do review your own place openly, be sure to thank people who review even negative ones, things like that. Apparently Yelp users have been known to punish stores that use "viral advertising" by circling the horses so to speak so this seems like good advice.

There is a strong social networking element to the site. You can message members, talk on a forum, and have friends, as well as invite people to join and be your friend.

I've been checking the site out for about 30 minutes but they took it down for maintenance. :(

I liked it! I found it pleasant to look at, easy to use, and the whole concept appeals to me. I can see a lot of use to this in a library at least as a place on our recommended sites list. I've noticed people often ask my personal opinion a lot. Not because they think I'm especially knowledgeable perhaps, but just because I am a real live human being. Taking the whole notion with a small grain of salt, I thought that Yelp was extremely appealing.