My local handyman (he is a real engineering, just does this after getting out of working a corporate job) that is booked months in advance told me a story. He was listed on Yelp with perfect reviews. One day Yelp called him and ask him about some paid for service to improve his listing. He said no thanks. A few days later he when from showing up in the top of the search to near the bottom. He is a great guy and does fantastic work. I was done with Yelp from that point.
Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
371–380 of 461 posts
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Something else" indeed. Recently a scam site popped up that copied the branding of our site, autotempest.com. (They registered autoStempest.com and copied our logos and such.) They claimed to be a dealership based in Texas, but were actually posting fake vehicles and having people wire them money (which they obviously kept). One of the things these scammers did to appear legit was set up a Yelp page with a bunch of…
What I do not understand is why nobody copied yelp with an ethical business model yet.
No idea why Apple hasn’t created their own review system within Apple Maps.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#373I've found Google Maps review quality and quantity improved over the last few years so it's rare that I'd even open Yelp in recent months. With this, I'm deleting my Yelp app.
But Google Maps is owned by Google. You’re basically exchanging the devil for Hitler.
It’s an improvement, but still bad.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#374Yelp is such a slimy company. First they wall off their mobile web reviews to try to force you to download their POS app, they have the whole extortion racket going trying to strongarm restaurants into paying for advertising, and now this. Friendly reminder - if you are on mobile and trying to read a Yelp review and don't want to download their app, simply hold refresh, click "request desktop site" and it will load t…
I wouldn't mind the constant redirects to the app IF the app was actually at least as functional as the website. The problem is that the app is less functional, which is infuriating.
1. image quality on the app is substantially worse than on desktop; a problem when you're trying to zoom into a large menu with small text
2. you can't search through image captions (i.e. to see only pictures of a particular menu item); possible on desktop but not on mobile
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 7 years that google owned zagat correlated with a massive improvement in the quality of their reviews. I have done the google maps local guide program a bit and the way it is structured is great. The google map slowly switches into proactive mode and solicits photos, ratings, and reviews. A few months ago a friend asked me what I was up to, so I sent them a photo of 2 flights of beer in an attempt to get them to…
> The google map slowly switches into proactive mode and solicits photos, ratings, and reviews. Funny, I hate when google asks me this. It feels like an invasion of my privacy, a reminder that they are tracking everything I do.
It only does this if you have location services turned on. You actually told Google it was ok to use your location to provide location specific services. That's not what I would call "tracking", which implies something clandestine.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well sure, because a rating doesn't measure how good a restaurant is compared to all other restaurants. Ratings measure how good a restaurant is compared to other restaurants in the same class because that is where their patrons' reference frame comes from. It's also unfair to rate both a $1 coffee and a $8 coffee on the same basis, it's clear that the cost constraints put pressure on how good you can make that coffe…
> Ratings measure how good a restaurant is compared to other restaurants in the same class because that is where their patrons' reference frame comes from. In the US, ratings measure, in significant part, race/ethnicity/subculture from which the restaurants clientele is drawn, because White Americans give higher ratings for similar descriptive satisfaction levels than other demographics (tending toward not unacceptab…
This shows up nicely in Japan's ubiquitous review site Tabelog, where ratings above 3.5 are very good and above 4.0 are unobtainium.
https://www.eater.com/2017/2/21/14686118/tokyo-tabelog-resta...
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#377I've found Google Maps review quality and quantity improved over the last few years so it's rare that I'd even open Yelp in recent months. With this, I'm deleting my Yelp app.
Does google maps have a search by rating, open time, and so on? I usually eat dinner around the time most restaurants have closed in the area. I find when I search google maps it gives me places closed, and often the hours in their listings are off. To be fair, hours have improved quite a bit in the last year. I need a way to filter what I'm looking for.
Try "X open now".
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#378It feels as though much of tech has gone from helping people accomplish their goals efficiently to a business model of extracting rents while providing no or little value. In this example, what benefit is GrubHub providing to anyone? The person used Yelp solely to look up the phone number of a restaurant. GrubHub deserves 15% of his order for that? Why, because they made a deal to give X% of it to Yelp, and convinced…
Grubhub's value to me is that they send out surveys to most (or all?) customers who order from restaurants, so the star ratings are actually useful to me. A lower rating is a huge red flag when I'm checking out new places, at least. But is that worth 15%? Most definitely not.
The problem with that is food quality changes with transportation and time. Unless a dish is designed for delivery it can be much lower quality since it is not served properly.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Something else" indeed. Recently a scam site popped up that copied the branding of our site, autotempest.com. (They registered autoStempest.com and copied our logos and such.) They claimed to be a dealership based in Texas, but were actually posting fake vehicles and having people wire them money (which they obviously kept). One of the things these scammers did to appear legit was set up a Yelp page with a bunch of…
What I do not understand is why nobody copied yelp with an ethical business model yet.
It's a network effect. Readers go to databases with the most data, and creators / reviewers go to the places with the best 'audience'.
Same reason why it's been a very long and hard road to replace craigslist for many things.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#380Isn't the restaurant business already hard enough without being charged $8 to answer a customer's question.
Well, I guess restaurants can end their relationship with Yelp and customers can stop using Yelp too.