How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will • Hacker News Board

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#121

Post by r00fus » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 8:57 PM UTC

steven777400 wrote: post #115

csandreasen wrote: post #107

Several years ago my spouse and I took a vacation abroad and booked a tour with a local company. The guide was really shocked when I told him that I went with their company because they had negative reviews. All of the touring companies had fairly amateur web sites, but with the exception of this company, all of the Yelp reviews were glowing, 5-star, nothing-went-wrong-with-this-trip reviews. His company had fairly g…

Especially key is also what the bad reviews are for. Like in your case, you identify the bad reviews are unreasonable expectations. Bad reviews with claimed reasonable cause may be worth a little more pause. Also important is number of reviews. I'd rather have a solid 4/5 product with 100 reviews than a straight 5 star product reviewed only 3 times.

Well, if there is a bad review that has a response from the company, that reflects well in my opinion, unless there are a large number of them.

Not sure if it's possible for vendors on Yelp to reply to their customers in the forum, but I see this all the time on Amazon.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#122

Post by jokoon » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 9:18 PM UTC

MadManE wrote: post #112

jokoon wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no excuse for technological illiteracy or ignorance I know the internet is much more popular since the last 10 years, but I don't think everyone is really up to it. There are still big opportunities to scam people who don't have the minimum of tech savyness: viruses, etc. The internet is still a jungle with not enough laws.

Why are laws the answer? If something is in a legal/moral gray area now, then how many people will stop doing it when it becomes a true illegality? Why not just have better defenses against things like this in the first place, that work whether the activity is deemed "wrong" or not?

There are many areas of the law which have been untouched for decades, and only starts now to create new cases because of how the internet works. Couchsurfing for example. Also scamming has never been so easy with the internet.

I'm not saying you really need laws, but regulations might improve the situation. There's nothing really illegal there, but it would be nice to see google being liable for its data if it reach a certain size of audience. In this case it's false advertising of defamation (unintentional).

Google map is a product, even if it hides behind a free thing "use with caution". Most people can get along with it, but if it starts to have a big impact on society, people will indeed become wary and learn, but not everyone will do.

I guess you can say "let the nature do its work", but that's not always how government see things, and that's not why the government exists. Strong government can do big improvements, I think. It depends, that's a balance to find.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#123

Post by prostoalex » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 9:29 PM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #113

prostoalex wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yelp customers don't want theme-able, if I'm browsing five restaurants closest to me to decide which ones to go to in the next 10 minutes, I want to see the type of cuisine, hours, menus, etc. in a consistent way instead of playing "find Waldo" with whatever artistic genius designed that specific theme.

Sure, but local businesses will still want control over their main web address. I don't think very many are confident enough to simply redirect you to their Yelp page.

Ah, right.

Google runs a GYBO (Get Your Business Online) program doing that, down to domain name, in an effort to upsell things like GApps once the small business is ready, I'm not sure how popular it is.

http://www.gybo.com/california/

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#124

Post by snowwrestler » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 9:45 PM UTC

electrum wrote: post #50

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is yelp telling you? I'm something of a foodie and am stunned at how inaccurate the reviews are for most restaurants. Most of the reviews seem to come from a minority "elite" users who are chronic whiners and come off as terribly immature. Its just incredible what people ding establishments for. "Fries came late, this place sucks! Zero stars!" Some people think the issue with yelp and google reviews is t…

Do you have any examples of awesome restaurants that have poor ratings on Yelp? Assuming a sufficient number of reviews, Yelp ratings are at least "directionally accurate". In my experience, a place with four stars is decent and two stars is poor. Many Asian restaurants in the Bay Area that I like are 3 or 3.5 stars, though many others with that rating are mediocre. But on the low or high end, it seems very accurate.

Yelp seems pretty useless for mid-range or focused restaurants. Think of a Mexican place that is inexpensive, but has great food that comes out in plastic baskets. Their Yelp page will be full of complaints about the plastic baskets.

There's a great ice cream place near me that gets complaints about their customer service. You're buying an ice cream cone! It takes like 3 sentences; how much service do you need? No joke, there are 2-star reviews like "Stopped by after dinner; the line was out the door and the owner seemed tired. The ice cream was delicious though."

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#125

Post by owenmarshall » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 11:59 PM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #54

mike_hearn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already do: Facebook and Google both have a "pages" feature which is designed for exactly that. Most businesses don't seem to want their Facebook/Google page to be their official website though, perhaps they think it looks unprofessional.

It is unprofessional.

It's unprofessional for a restaurant or a mechanic or a pet groomer to have their Facebook/Google page as their official web presence?

How can it be "unprofessional"? That's simply not their profession. Why should we judge them on that?

What an odd comment.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#126

Post by owenmarshall » Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 12:09 AM UTC

VikingCoder wrote: post #98

wutbrodo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone here is sympathetic to the idea that a 74 year-old shouldn't have to keep up with every new technology, but you seem to be forgetting the fact that he's running a business. Not knowing what Maps is is fine for a random consumer, but excusing a restaurant owner for not knowing about online map services is basically saying that he's no longer competent to run the restaurant.

...or knowing that he doesn't know about "that online stuff," and hiring someone who does know about it to help him manage it. It's a cost of business.

"The known, the unknown, and the underknown" - TMBG

"as we know, there are known knowns[...] there are known unknowns[...] But there are also unknown unknowns" - Donald Rumsfeld

It's easy for business-minded techies to understand the impact of "that online stuff". It's very likely that a septuagenarian restauranteur simply doesn't fathom its potential impact.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#127

Post by wutbrodo » Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 2:41 AM UTC

nnnnni wrote: post #86

wutbrodo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangent: You can still view Flash on most phones sold, no? I think as long as you're using something other than Chrome (like FF).

There are ways to do it, but I'm pretty sure that it was dropped even for Android a year or so ago. Regardless, it's a pain to navigate flash restaurant menus. Just give me a plain list!

No for sure, I wasn't disagreeing with the comment (hence the tangent disclaimer), just pointing out something that most people have a misconception about. I'm pretty sure that you can still install Flash on Android, just not in Chrome (or probably the stock browser, where it still exists); My phone has KitKat on it and I can use the Flash plugin as long as I switch to Firefox.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#128

Post by chdir » Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 4:45 AM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #116

chdir wrote: post #18

If you are running a popular place, whether you like it or not, you'll end up on Google controlled listings. Unfortunately, there's little help for a non-tech savvy business owner to fix problems with listings or fake reviews or even removal of genuine reviews. This is an area where they need to be held accountable. If you are wielding so much power, you need to handle it responsibly and error in favor of business ow…

>If you are wielding so much power, you need to handle it responsibly and error in favor of business owners rather than community Could you elaborate why?

The above article is an example of how Google unknowingly destroyed a 40 year old business that was being run by a 74 year old man who hadn't used internet. I've personally known business owners who struggle to figure out reputation management with Google listings. There's simply no systematic way to call up Google & fix things when things go wrong. We're talking about people's sole livelihood here. If there's a doubt about a listing, instead of assuming that crowd source data is correct, Google should have a clear laid out way for businesses to call up and set things right.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#129

Post by coroxout » Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 10:20 AM UTC

_wp3r wrote: post #71

If you have ever used mapmaker, and attempted to update/modify POI and roads, then you will be aware of the strange and unvalidated process of accepting and denying changes to Gmaps. There are more than a couple bad actors that are Approved Google map moderators. I am not sure if their collective actions for denying and modifying changes are a net good or net positive. It has always seemed strange that someone from W…

Less of a problem than described in this article, and now fixed, but rather incongruous nonetheless: a couple of years ago (as far as I could make out) Google maps editing was available in some territories and not in others.

Consequently the various colleges and attractions of Oxford, UK were labelled in Japanese (and some of them in the wrong place) even when viewed from Google UK and/or in the UK, because Japanese tourists and tourist companies could edit the maps and users in the UK couldn't edit them back.

Re: How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business at Will

#130

Post by VikingCoder » Tue, Jul 08, 2014, 2:18 PM UTC

owenmarshall wrote: post #126

VikingCoder wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or knowing that he doesn't know about "that online stuff," and hiring someone who does know about it to help him manage it. It's a cost of business.

"The known, the unknown, and the underknown" - TMBG "as we know, there are known knowns[...] there are known unknowns[...] But there are also unknown unknowns" - Donald Rumsfeld It's easy for business-minded techies to understand the impact of "that online stuff". It's very likely that a septuagenarian restauranteur simply doesn't fathom its potential impact.

Agreed, and unfortunately for him, his competition WILL understand it. It's survival of the fittest. The fit septuagenarians are the ones who listen to their grand-kids who tell them they have to get "online."