7 ms·
What do you use instead?
by faitswulff 8y ago
What do you use instead?
- meritt 8y agoRestaurants: Tripadvisor, Google, Zagat Service Providers: Homeadvisor, Angie's List
- njarboe 8y agoFYI, Zagat's parent company is Google/Alphabet.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> FYI, Zagat's parent company is Google/Alphabet. No, it's not. Google sold Zagat in March to The Infatuation.
- ghaff 8y agoI forgot about that! I've been using Zagat since back in the day when you filled out a form for some city you were familiar with and they sent you a free restaurant guidebook for that city in exchange. I still think they're the best guide (except possibly for the local newspaper site) for people who have a somewhat foodie orientation. But they only cover a relatively small number of US cities.
- njarboe 8y agoI stand corrected.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kbenson 8y agoObligatory TripAdvisor fake restaurant story.[1] Not that it means TripAdvisor doesn't provide value, it's just a wonderful story. :) 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861136
- Finnucane 8y agoAngie's List is less useful than it should be. It seems that the reviews are largely promotion-driven (i.e., vendors that offer coupons get reviews, others get no reviews).
- chaostheory 8y agoHomeadvisor is just not a good source for service providers, especially when compared to Yelp. Angie's list is a little better, but Yelp still beats it. Maybe it's because Angie's List started as a paid service which limits the number of reviewers, even though it slightly improves review authenticity
- briandear 8y agoAngie’s List lost me with their user-hostile behavior. For example, cancelling an account required a phone call, also you can’t change your membership location at will, so if you spend any time outside of your local area, they didn’t let you see information for other locales.
- stephencoyner 8y agoGoogle maps reviews is just as good if not better in some ways IMO. That's what I use as an alternative.
- Upvoter33 8y agoThis is really really not true. I did a local comparison any Google map reviews were REALLY REALLY bad whereas Yelp knew what the good restaurants were. Not even close, at least in my area.
- untog 8y agoI don't think you can really use any absolutes here. It depends very heavily on where in the world you are.
- roymurdock 8y agoditto, google maps reviews are weirdly inflated with almost all restaurants having 4+ stars, even terrible ones yelp's review quality has been on the decline as of late though. it used to be great
- ilikehurdles 8y agoSeconding this. Yelp reviews have their problems but at least there's always content in the review and I can validate some of the reviewer's reputation if they're being suspiciously positive/negative in their review. Most google ratings I see have very few reviews behind them, and most of them are under a sentence long.
- freehunter 8y agoSomeone on Google reviewed my local cemetery. One star rating, because it made them sad to drive past it. Why even allow reviews on a cemetery?!
- komali2 8y agohttps://www.google.com/maps/place/Pacific+Ocean/@-0.1930911,123.1058866,3z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!1m5!8m4!1e1!2s102045158975530137612!3m1!1e1!3m6!1s0x76ed042c30f318eb:0x8eff14a070876cbc!8m2!3d-8.783195!4d-124.508523!9m1!1b1?hl=en-US https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pacific+Ocean/@-0.1930911,... Google Reviews of the Pacific Ocean.
- Glyptodon 8y agoI don't know if this is accurate, but I have the sense that Trip Advisor is kind of taking over the space, at least for food and cultural stuff.
- ilikehurdles 8y agoI find TripAdvisor extremely inflated and I somehow always end up at tourist traps using it when I'm countries where yelp isn't available. It's more useful for finding out about sights but I avoid it for food and services.
- Glyptodon 8y agoI'm not intending to say that it's good, just that it seems a lot more widely used than Yelp lately.
- ilikehurdles 8y agoIt does depend on where in the world you are too.
- deadmetheny 8y agoTripAdvisor is hilariously easy to game[1] [1]https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the...
- prepend 8y agoTrip advisor is turning into the experts exchange of reviews. Great seo, not useful material. I was recently trying to find the best fish restaurant in Key West and TripAdvisor was all over results with the same stupid results.
- rwbt 8y agoThis might not be helpful, but I decided to rely on serendipity. Sometimes I feel like we think too much about finding the best of the 'best' and we rely on expert opinions of the crowd instead of taking a chance ourselves and trying out new things.
- tjr225 8y agoIt is helpful, this just might not be the most receptive crowd. I agree with you 100% fwiw.
- thx11389793 8y agomy personal method when out and about is "ask a stranger," with using my hand computer as a backup. i delight in answering these questions as well, so i'm inclined to believe people generally don't mind.
- freehunter 8y agoI travel a lot and talk to a lot of people and I can tell you from my experience that a lot of people don't know the best restaurants in their town. Most people haven't eaten at all of them to make the comparison. The best way to find out is to have some way to ask a bunch of people then compare their collective results and see what everyone's experience adds up to. That quickly starts looking a lot like Yelp.
- Loughla 8y agoI travel a lot, and I never ask for the 'best' place to eat. What you ask is very, very important. I always ask what their favorite place to eat is. That is a different result. What I've noticed is if you ask a random stranger what the 'best' is, you get the same generic, expensive fusion something made into a paste cuisine. If you ask their favorite, you find small, off-the-wall places with terrible selection, but amazing food.
- ilikehurdles 8y agoNot the OP, and I find that yelp is in a better league than the competition (google, tripadvisor), but I tend to look on Eater.
- vmchale 8y agoI just avoid user-hostile sites tbh. I don't go to expensive restaurants so if it's a miss I just avoid it in the future.
- briandear 8y agoI use TripAdvisor. Much less mean and agressive in terms of review quality as what I have experienced with Yelp.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dawhizkid 8y agoI like Foursquare though I find the quality of the data/reviews are spotty depending on the city (NYC is good; SF is only so so)