Yelp?

[CaseyMiller]

Do you read and/or write reviews on Yelp?

The more I use this site the more I like it. It has a lot more functionality than I initially thought with message boards, chat, local deals. It has become my go to app for finding local decent places to eat.

What an amazing way to provide instant feedback on the dining experience to management. I imagine restaurant management follow posted reviews closely. Heck, they probably post a lot of the reviews themselves.

A great site.

[catherine]

As a market researcher, I just have to caution you on a few things:

--Sample number: In other words if 3 people responded to a place, and all were negative, I'd take it with a grain of salt. Only 3 reviews is not going to be a good indicator. Plus, people will be more likely to post a negative review than a positive one.

--The reviews are not balanced: this means that they might be very skewed in one way or another. They will not be balanced by age, gender, income, or any other variable. So, what if 15 people say that a restaurant is old-fashioned. Maybe those 15 people are between the ages of 18 and 33. Maybe 15 people between the ages of 50-60 will love the decor.

--People seed the reviews. How do you know the raves aren't by relatives? How do you know the negative reviews aren't by the competition?


I'm not saying yelp is bad. It can be helpful, but they are NOT collected in a scientific or statistically stable way.

In general, discount the outliers, both high and low, and the larger the number of reviews the better you can feel about where the truth lies.

[Gardenarian]

In San Francisco it is used extensively, there are often hundreds of reviews for a single service. So it's fairly useful.

[SteveinMN]

I treat Yelp the same way I treat any other non-professional review site (Amazon, epinions, audioreview.com, etc.). It's a set of data points, but not much more. Without knowing where the reviewer is coming from or what his/her qualifications are (unless disclosed), the opinion cannot be of high quality.

[CaseyMiller]

Of course Yelp provides far more than just reviews. With a click it shows nearby locations by cuisine. Two clicks more and my phone is telling me directions to the restaurant. Local deals, menu's, serving specifications etc....

A great resource really.

[Gregg]

It's not particularly helpful around our home town because the area is just too small to get a reliable sampling. We have used it, and liked it, when traveling to NY, SF, Seattle, LA and a few other places. Like Gardenarian said, when you get to a couple hundred reviews you get a pretty good general sense of the place.

[jp1]

I find it useful if I'm away from home and want to find, say, a Mexican restaurant. I'll look them up, look at the overall rankings, read a few reviews for each, and then make a decision and go to dinner. It's not as though I'm looking for a brain surgeon. Just a place that has decent enchiladas and hopefully a good margarita. So far I've only been supremely disappointed with a yelp dinner recommendation once. Considering the number of times I've consulted it I consider that pretty good odds.

[gmpg54]

I had it on my smartphone,before I gave it up for more frugalness?I LOVED IT!!! Kind of lived vicariously through it too,money was very tight,so I'd surf Yelp and checkout all the restaurants!!

[treehugger]

I find it useful if I'm away from home and want to find, say, a Mexican restaurant. I'll look them up, look at the overall rankings, read a few reviews for each, and then make a decision and go to dinner. It's not as though I'm looking for a brain surgeon. Just a place that has decent enchiladas and hopefully a good margarita. So far I've only been supremely disappointed with a yelp dinner recommendation once. Considering the number of times I've consulted it I consider that pretty good odds.

This is how we use it (except, we also use it close to home). Of course we know that the veracity of the reviews cannot be verified. But, disregarding the 1 star and 5 star reviews, if there's a large enough sample, we can get a good sense of the overall feel of the place and whether it would suit our tastes (which is really all that matters because yes, we aren't picking a brain surgeon!).

I like when negative reviews give an explanation because then I can decide if that issue matters to me. So often, they are things like, "I had to wait 5 minutes for a table!!!!!" or "They wouldn't give me a soup-bowl of ranch dressing when I asked for it!!!!!

I also know that some small businesses don't feel that Yelp treats them fairly, and I am not unsympathetic. What's ironic though is that we only learned about the existence of a really awesome local burger place because of Yelp, and yet they have an anti-Yelp sticker in their window. I know it's not a perfect system, but, in general, I am in favor of tools that give consumers more choice and more power over their choices.

I appreciate that there are more and more types of businesses showing up on there, besides restaurants (mechanics, massage therapists, contractors, etc.).

Kara

[JaneV2.0]

I'm conflicted, since they've put my reviews in time out more than once--for no good reason--and lost at least one. I do use it fairly often to get a general impression of a restaurant or service.