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Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

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Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#121

Post by GBond »

Naritai wrote: post #92
birken wrote: post #38

As somebody that worked for a competitor and knows a lot about both of these companies, I can't say for certain what company is going to "win" local services but I can promise you both of these companies will lose (or I guess you could say Angie's List has now already lost). Angie's List went from a membership based review service and tried to unsuccessfully turn it into a marketplace which never worked. In the proce…

Is there someone who _is_ going to win?

My money is on Amazon Home & Business Services. Although essentially they have the same referral network model, people trust AMZN's review platform.

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#122

Post by yelpisascam »

timr wrote: post #61
nunez wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ANYTHING is better than Yelp. It literally does everything in the book to get you to download the app (to collect your user data, presumably) and is literally designed from the ground up to promote businesses that pay them to be higher on the index. Their sales tactics are borderline abusive, too. They will hunt you down forever until you sign a package with them, and they give you zero time to think about whether th…

"and is literally designed from the ground up to promote businesses that pay them to be higher on the index." This is false. Source: I worked there, on search. You cannot pay to rank higher in search.

Except for the fact that you can be at the top of all search results by purchasing an ad. (SOURCE: Opened yelp in browser on mobile amd searched for coffee in SF)

Yelp is also terrible for owners who purchase a business and are strong armed into doing business with yelp on order to remove all the previous bad ratings, description, contact info, etc. (Source: bought 1 bar in LA and 2 in LV)

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#124

Post by erikpukinskis »

exolymph wrote: post #59
erikpukinskis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will always be true for any subjective rating system, i.e. stars, upvotes, etc. The solution is classification instead of ranking. I am more interested in a Mediterranean place that cooks falafel to order and has tahini sauce than I am in a 4-star Mediterranean restaurant. Conveniently those are all verifiable facts, so there's no need to wrestle with subjectivity.

> I am more interested in a Mediterranean place that cooks falafel to order and has tahini sauce than I am in a 4-star Mediterranean restaurant. You preferences aren't the mean or the median, I suspect.

So? The point is everyone can filter according to their preferences, not according to some point system which in the end signifies nothing at all.

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#125

Post by nunez »

timr wrote: post #61
nunez wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ANYTHING is better than Yelp. It literally does everything in the book to get you to download the app (to collect your user data, presumably) and is literally designed from the ground up to promote businesses that pay them to be higher on the index. Their sales tactics are borderline abusive, too. They will hunt you down forever until you sign a package with them, and they give you zero time to think about whether th…

"and is literally designed from the ground up to promote businesses that pay them to be higher on the index." This is false. Source: I worked there, on search. You cannot pay to rank higher in search.

in search being the keyword

ads from paying businesses list higher than search results; this effectively means you pay to be "indexed" higher

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#126

Post by sjg007 »

tedmiston wrote: post #81

I would like to hear someone explain why it's worth $500M. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angie%27s_List : > Angie's List is a US-based website containing crowd-sourced reviews of local businesses. For the quarter ending on June 30, 2016, Angie's List reported total revenue of US$83,000,000 and a net income of US$4,797,000. > Angie's List had its first profitable year since founding in 1995 in 2015. > In 2013, in…

The companies to beat are Thumbtack and maybe ProReferral aka red beacon. They seem to have the right monetization schemes. Also, I would think that the big box home improvement stores like Home Depot drive huge referral traffic.

Also one of these companies should team up with HGTV.

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#127

Post by timr »

amarghose wrote: post #93
timr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and is literally designed from the ground up to promote businesses that pay them to be higher on the index." This is false. Source: I worked there, on search. You cannot pay to rank higher in search.

This might be true technically but it's common knowledge that not paying will negatively affect perfectly good reviews. To the point that reviews that were ok while we paid aren't the instant we stop. You can argue whatever you want about your former employers but convincing SBOs that Yelp aren't extortionist scumbags based on this detail is not going to fly. Source: I work directly with maid services and trust in Ye…

"it's common knowledge that not paying will negatively affect perfectly good reviews"

No, it's a common rumor. Repeating rumors does not make them true, and this "knowledge" is completely false.

I have no financial or business interest in Yelp. I just don't enjoy seeing my own work, and the work of my colleagues, disparaged by completely unsubstantiated rumor mongering.

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#128

Post by [deleted] »

nunez wrote: post #125
timr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and is literally designed from the ground up to promote businesses that pay them to be higher on the index." This is false. Source: I worked there, on search. You cannot pay to rank higher in search.

in search being the keyword ads from paying businesses list higher than search results; this effectively means you pay to be "indexed" higher

[deleted]

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#129

Post by timr »

nunez wrote: post #125
timr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and is literally designed from the ground up to promote businesses that pay them to be higher on the index." This is false. Source: I worked there, on search. You cannot pay to rank higher in search.

in search being the keyword ads from paying businesses list higher than search results; this effectively means you pay to be "indexed" higher

no, it doesn't. it means that ads appear on search pages. just like every other search engine on the internet.
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