Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 20 posts

Re: 'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

#11

Post by mschaecher »

nathanblec wrote: post #8

Hi folks, I'm a co-founder and the CTO of Airbnb. The author did not book the property through Airbnb. Had he done so, he would have learned what we do in these rare situations. His article missed a couple key points: 1) If a host cancels a reservation on a guest, a default review is generated stating that the host canceled X days before arrival. The guest can modify this auto-generated review if he wants to add colo…

I also work at Airbnb and would like to follow up on what Nate just said. Our review system is actually stronger than all the aforementioned sites because it is transaction based, i.e., only people who complete the transaction through Airbnb can leave a review.

Non-transaction based review sites like Yelp, VRBO, etc., are plagued with fake reviews by owners, guests, and competitors. On sites like that, how do you know that those glowing reviews you just read weren't written by the owners, their staff, or their friends? You don't.

By tying our double-sided review system to actual transactions you can have almost complete confidence that the reviews you are reading are the result of someone staying with, or hosting, another member of our community.

We have reached out to the author of the article to articulate this, but rest assured, had he booked through Airbnb he would have been able to write the review he wanted.

In addition to that, he wouldn't have sent money blindly to someone. We would be holding it until after he checks in and reminding the owner via email of the booking to prevent exactly this kind of situation from happening. And in the rare occasions when it does, our 24/7 customer team would have stepped in and helped to find him a new place or issue a complete and fast refund.

Re: 'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

#12

Post by ashaunak »

I also feel there is inherent conflict of interest when users post negative reviews at sites like Seamless, Grubhub, AirBnB, VRBO etc. As these companies receive revenues from their partners they might be biased against negative reviews. It would be interesting to see some statistical analysis between reviews on Yelp and reviews on these sites on the same merchant (restaurant, property manager etc.).I would not be surprised if the analysis shows that some of these sites have an artificial upward bias in their reviews/ratings.

Re: 'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

#13

Post by ryanwaggoner »

mschaecher wrote: post #11
nathanblec wrote: post #8

Hi folks, I'm a co-founder and the CTO of Airbnb. The author did not book the property through Airbnb. Had he done so, he would have learned what we do in these rare situations. His article missed a couple key points: 1) If a host cancels a reservation on a guest, a default review is generated stating that the host canceled X days before arrival. The guest can modify this auto-generated review if he wants to add colo…

I also work at Airbnb and would like to follow up on what Nate just said. Our review system is actually stronger than all the aforementioned sites because it is transaction based, i.e., only people who complete the transaction through Airbnb can leave a review. Non-transaction based review sites like Yelp, VRBO, etc., are plagued with fake reviews by owners, guests, and competitors. On sites like that, how do you kno…

Sorry, but no. If I was an unscrupulous host and wanted to boost my listing, the first thing I'd do is have a bunch of friends (or fake accounts) book nights on my listing and leave glowing reviews. I'm out maybe $100 for Airbnb fees and now I have a slew of awesome reviews. What are the odds that this doesn't happen all the time?

Re: 'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

#14

Post by pg »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #13
mschaecher wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also work at Airbnb and would like to follow up on what Nate just said. Our review system is actually stronger than all the aforementioned sites because it is transaction based, i.e., only people who complete the transaction through Airbnb can leave a review. Non-transaction based review sites like Yelp, VRBO, etc., are plagued with fake reviews by owners, guests, and competitors. On sites like that, how do you kno…

Sorry, but no. If I was an unscrupulous host and wanted to boost my listing, the first thing I'd do is have a bunch of friends (or fake accounts) book nights on my listing and leave glowing reviews. I'm out maybe $100 for Airbnb fees and now I have a slew of awesome reviews. What are the odds that this doesn't happen all the time?

Do you really think the Airbnb guys haven't considered this possibility?

People who do that sort of thing leave lots of tracks they don't realize they're leaving.

Re: 'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

#15

Post by Lucadg »

ashaunak wrote: post #12

I also feel there is inherent conflict of interest when users post negative reviews at sites like Seamless, Grubhub, AirBnB, VRBO etc. As these companies receive revenues from their partners they might be biased against negative reviews. It would be interesting to see some statistical analysis between reviews on Yelp and reviews on these sites on the same merchant (restaurant, property manager etc.).I would not be su…

I'm not so sure. Bad reviews give credibility to these websites. Imagine a rental website with only good reviews.

Re: 'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

#16

Post by Lucadg »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #13
mschaecher wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also work at Airbnb and would like to follow up on what Nate just said. Our review system is actually stronger than all the aforementioned sites because it is transaction based, i.e., only people who complete the transaction through Airbnb can leave a review. Non-transaction based review sites like Yelp, VRBO, etc., are plagued with fake reviews by owners, guests, and competitors. On sites like that, how do you kno…

Sorry, but no. If I was an unscrupulous host and wanted to boost my listing, the first thing I'd do is have a bunch of friends (or fake accounts) book nights on my listing and leave glowing reviews. I'm out maybe $100 for Airbnb fees and now I have a slew of awesome reviews. What are the odds that this doesn't happen all the time?

When I was in Vietnam last year I booked a few cheap hotels in the 10-20 U$ a night range (nice ones by the way!) on Agoda.com. Often the reviews went like "best breakfast in Asia" or "I will come back to Vietnam just to stay in this Hotel" but when I went there, they where nice but not THAT nice. Once I went here http://www.agoda.com/asia/vietnam/hoi_an/sunflower_hotel.htm... as the reviews where incredibly good: but as I found out the internet was very slow, breakfast was a deception, the reception a bit rude and they even gave me a smaller room. So I wrote a review adding to be careful about fake reviews. Sure enough Agoda did not publish it and they did not even respond to my email asking why. I did not expect a Facebook debit card but at least a "thank you" :) After all I helped them spotting cheaters! I was completely ignored.

The result is a side flooded by fake reviews costing a couple of bucks each to the Hotel manager. That's cheaper than Adwords :)

Re: 'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

#17

Post by Duff »

Yelp? Yelp is the home of people who post stuff like "they didn't serve chicken fingers!" for Sushi restaurants.

A fundamental feature/flaw in the apartment/house rental place is inconsistency. You're dealing with one rental owner by proxy via some listing joint. If you want consistency and reliable reviews, go to the Hilton and check TripAdvisor.

Re: 'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

#18

Post by foxit »

earl wrote: post #10

VRBO sucks as a rental seeking user. Two years ago I tried to organize a ski trip for my then employer (Scribd). VRBO stats: I contacted ~30 places. Only thirteen called back, not even 50%. Of the 13 that responded (over a period of 9 days), many of them had sold the cabin for my desired time but couldn't be arsed to update the availability calendar. I managed to make it happen, but in the future, I can't recommend v…

VRBO sucks no matter who you are. We don't use that site. (We do use HomeAway, who bought them out, but they're being maintained separately.)

VRBO's sucktitude is summed up quite nicely by clicking on any state:

New Feature Alert! You can now see the availability for each property in the search results. Simply enter a date range and hit the "Apply" button.

Yes, that's a new feature. They didn't have it before. But they'd like us to pay $600 to be listed for a year.

Re: 'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

#19

Post by foxit »

pg wrote: post #14
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but no. If I was an unscrupulous host and wanted to boost my listing, the first thing I'd do is have a bunch of friends (or fake accounts) book nights on my listing and leave glowing reviews. I'm out maybe $100 for Airbnb fees and now I have a slew of awesome reviews. What are the odds that this doesn't happen all the time?

Do you really think the Airbnb guys haven't considered this possibility? People who do that sort of thing leave lots of tracks they don't realize they're leaving.

And if they have considered it, what are they doing about it? I'll bet you a thousand dollars if the suggested scenario happens, there is no mechanism in place to alert anyone, stop it, or deal with it, no matter how big the tracks left. Do you know how many of the NYC listings are pure scam?

I'll grant their review system is set up from the get-go to be the best of anyone out there.

Re: 'Reputational' Media—Where Yelp Has an Edge Over AirBnB, VRBO, etc.

#20

Post by ryanwaggoner »

pg wrote: post #14
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but no. If I was an unscrupulous host and wanted to boost my listing, the first thing I'd do is have a bunch of friends (or fake accounts) book nights on my listing and leave glowing reviews. I'm out maybe $100 for Airbnb fees and now I have a slew of awesome reviews. What are the odds that this doesn't happen all the time?

Do you really think the Airbnb guys haven't considered this possibility? People who do that sort of thing leave lots of tracks they don't realize they're leaving.

Like? If I emailed a few friends around the country and asked them to help me out like that, how would Airbnb know?

I'm not saying they haven't considered it, I'm saying they can't stop it. Making the claim that a transaction based review system is inherently trustworthy seems either naive or disingenuous.

Post reply on HN