Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site • Hacker News Board

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#301

Post by naravara » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:52 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #235

Scoundreller wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now that reddit’s Death has begun, what’s our alternative?

While I think the redesign is bloated and slower its not unusable and you can opt out of it at present. Being prompted repeatedly to open in app is certainly annoying but at present most mobile users probably use one of the apps. At least for android where 85% of your global market lives there are 7 different options nearly all of which are better than viewing in mobile firefox/chrome. In short your experience is val…

>In short your experience is valid but since you probably represent a small percentage of the userbase reports of reddits death are still presumably greatly exaggerated.

I don't think people are forecasting Reddit's death so much as wishing for it and asking for alternatives they can go to instead.

I don't think Reddit will ever really die. It will persist, as a sort of night-club district from the comparatively well lit streets of Facebook and Twitter. It's not really a red light district anymore, but it's edgy enough for most people.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#302

Post by oe » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:53 PM UTC

nhauz wrote: post #295

chrissnell wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually wrote some ad blocking rules to remove all of these Reddit annoyances. I've been meaning to submit them to one of the mobile-focused Adblock lists. Here are the elements that you need to hide. I like 1 BlockerX for this: .snackbar .xpromopopup .topbutton .xpromopill

Wish I could add those to mobile Safari :P

Install an ad blocker that supports hiding page elements. I added these to 1Blocker on iOS.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#303

Post by jessaustin » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:53 PM UTC

apl002 wrote: post #199

mlrtime wrote: post #9

I don't have any sympathy for a site that purposely cripples the web mobile site to force you to install their app. They lock you out of pictures after around 20 so you have to go to desktop or install their crappy app. Yelp will not be missed.

just curious why you're against downloading the app? I work on native apps and just wondering why you have a preference for mobile web.

In general, native apps suck. It's a rigmarole to install them. They insist on all these awful rights, and if there's some sort of vulnerability in the platform they're sure to be exploiting it as hard as they can. Even if they're not exploiting my data, they're probably not protecting my data very well. Many of them are bloated monstrosities. They are poorly maintained and will eventually break. They enforce some sort of psychological commitment to continue to interact with whatever crappy organization published them.

Note: I'm not saying that you suck. You have an identity and worth separate from native apps.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#304

Post by keketi » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:54 PM UTC

neogodless wrote: post #267

wlesieutre wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you want to view it in the official Reddit app for the best experience ? No, no I don't. And the official reddit app is not the best experience.

This reminds me of Tumblr, which I'm sure none of you have heard of or remember :) But seriously it's always like "Open in the Tumblr app for the best experience." I finally gave it a try and it was a serious downgrade in my opinion!

But you did give it a try.

t. Tumblr marketing department

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#305

Post by beenBoutIT » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #102

makecheck wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile browsers should differentiate the style of links with URLs that resolve to apps. I am tired of tapping links expecting to remain in Safari and having useless “open in app?” prompts instead. I’m not IN an app, I’m in a browser; I want to use the browser. And when cancelling the prompt gets you nothing, it really feels like Yelp is screaming “NO SOUP FOR YOU!”.

Reddit keeps asking me if I want to download their app or Open in Safari... regardless of which browser I’m using. Not every iOS user is using Safari!!!!

Every iOS user using any iOS browser is in reality using Safari's WebKit dressed differently.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#306

Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

Deimorz wrote: post #270

Scoundreller wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now that reddit’s Death has begun, what’s our alternative?

Disclaimer: self-promotion I worked at reddit for almost 4 years, but quit and started a non-profit so I could work on building a site that would be able to stick to the principles I believe are important: no advertising or investors, open-source, privacy, higher-quality content, etc. It's not incredibly active yet since it's in invite-only alpha, but it gets several hundred posts a day and is coming along well. Ther…

Mostly happy member here. Depth is less than reddit, but discussion quality easily tops it.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#307

Post by stanleydrew » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #230

stanleydrew wrote: post #30

I bet Apple will be snooping around for a cheap acquisition here. Apple already uses Yelp for their place data in Apple Maps and they are still way behind Google. Eventually Apple will probably need to have its own place data if it wants to continue to compete in maps. Yelp would give them a starting point.

Doesn't Apple tend to buy relatively unknown companies and fold their IP into their products? Beats Audio was the only major one I remember them absorbing, and was rebranded as Apple Music. But Beats had that upscale demographic and positive brand image that Apple covets so dearly, whereas Yelp feels very much like a bygone brand of the 2010s IPO rush (along with Groupon and Foursquare). Not sure Apple would be inter…

I don't think Apple cares about any Yelp "IP". It's a local establishment discovery and review site.

You suggest "they can just pay for the POI data." Which is basically what I'm suggesting.

Yelp's actual underlying asset is its POI database. Apple might want that if they decide to own rather than rent (which is a transition Google made a while back). Not at any price, but if Yelp continues to struggle the valuation might make sense.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#308

Post by 1024core » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 8:59 PM UTC

Yelp is tanking because it is putting profits before customers.

Case in point: let's say you're looking for a restaurant in a certain area, maybe in San Francisco? So you zoom into that area and do a search: find "x" in the map.

So what do they do? They zoom out (sometimes, far out) to include some advertisers.

Rule #1 if you have a customer-facing product: if you give the users choice, then respect that choice! Always respect the user. Always.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#309

Post by kibwen » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #277

kibwen wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the Wallet to Pay transition anything more than a rename? I confess I don't understand Google's branding strategies. According to news sources, Wallet became Pay around February, and this email was received months later.

> According to news sources, Wallet became Pay around February, and this email was received months later. I think Pay replaced Wallet when you say as an app upgrade, but not everyone upgrades immediately or automatically; that may have been about decommissioning Wallet after the upgrade was available.

I never had the Wallet app so I'd be confused to receive an email telling me to upgrade, but I'd be happy to be wrong. For as much as I'd rather have banks just natively support digital inter-bank transactions, if I absolutely have to share my bank account details with a third party, at least Google has relatively good security practices.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#310

Post by timr » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

dunpeal wrote: post #260

timr wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked directly on the code that would have done the things you're asserting to be true. There's no code to support it, and in fact, there are tools in place to prevent what you're claiming. If there were some top-secret internal conspiracy to use the other tools on the site to do what you're claiming, you have to be especially credulous to believe that I -- or people just like me -- wouldn't have noticed it. Unles…

The typical criticism of Yelp was that you could get negative reviews of your business removed if you paid them. I'm not sure how as a coder you'd be able to guarantee that's never been done, except if your code guaranteed that no review could ever be removed by a human moderator, which I'm sure is not the case.

"I'm not sure how as a coder you'd be able to guarantee that's never been done, except if your code guaranteed that no review could ever be removed by a human moderator, which I'm sure is not the case."

I don't need to prove a negative. You need to prove your claim.

There's no evidence of what you're arguing, anywhere, and I'm telling you that the code didn't have any ability to support it. If there were some system to allow advertisers to influence reviews, I would have known about it. Moreover, if there were some top-secret, non-code mechanism to do it, I would have seen it in the data.

I have never seen any such thing.

On top of all of that, if it were really true that you could get your business' negative reviews removed, there would be ample evidence of this. By definition, it's not something Yelp could hide.

Nobody provides evidence. They just downvote.