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I had to install their app to get in line at a local restaurant. Immediately uninstalled. I don't see why people use Yelp other than the fact that they have a

by tjr225 7y ago

I had to install their app to get in line at a local restaurant. Immediately uninstalled. I don't see why people use Yelp other than the fact that they have a mindshare dominance on ratings. User generated/internet 2.0 style food ratings are basically useless anyway, add in all of the other shady stuff Yelp does and you have a hard pass from me.

skrowl 7y ago
I had that same experience. Google Maps is already on your phone for navigation and I've found that it's ratings & reviews to be more reliable than Yelps.
stri8ed 7y ago
I use Yelp since its significantly harder to fake reviews on it than it is on Google. That, and the community culture is centered on high-quality reviews.
- Fjolsvith 7y ago
  As a Google guide, I can flag irrelevant content in Google reviews.
  - stri8ed 7y ago
    The volume of fake reviews is simply too much, and its much cheaper to create them, than it is to combat them. A good measure of this is, compare the prices for fake reviews on both platforms, I suspect Google will be significantly cheaper. Its a tough problem to solve, no doubt, but Yelp chooses to error on the side of caution, and will sometimes flag legitimate reviews as "not recommended reviews" as a result.
  - abawany 7y ago
    I like and have used Google reviews for a while after having had enough of Yelp's issues, to the point where I removed my many reviews from Yelp. However, I think Google has a ways to go to remove junk reviews. For example, 'Baguette et Chocolat' near Austin pissed off some open-carry person, who I think also runs a gun blog, last year by asking him to leave when he ignored their state-law-compliant signs prohibiting the same. He then proceeded to command his fans to leave bad reviews for this restaurant, and they complied in droves leaving useful gems such as 'Found out the owners are hoplophobes. Never giving them my business again.' . I spent quite a bit of time reporting these and I think many others did as well. Yelp shut down review logging for this restaurant fairly quickly at the time but I am not sure Google did anything - the above "review" is still present as of today. I am disappointed with Google but have come to realize that they embody the opposite of the motto: "if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well." Edit: Google still allows logging reviews without comments, which further worsens the problem.
- dhd415 7y ago
  The quality of Yelp must be location-specific. Where I live, Yelp reviews are borderline worthless with chain restaurants with mediocre food and service scoring at or above legitimately worthwhile restaurants. I don't know whether to attribute that to the gaming of reviews or the pedestrian tastes of the Yelp reviewers in my area.
  - stri8ed 7y ago
    The quantity of reviews is super important. Anybody can build a 5 star rating by getting 3 friends to post reviews. Do these restaurants with "mediocre food" have many reviews?
- astura 7y ago
  Why is it harder to fake reviews on Yelp?
  - stri8ed 7y ago
    The algorithm's are much stricter, and most such reviews will be automatically hidden by Yelp, under "not recommended reviews". https://www.yelp-support.com/article/Why-would-a-review-not-be-recommended?l=en_US https://www.yelp-support.com/article/Why-would-a-review-not-...
- asdff 7y ago
  I've seen plenty of yelp reviews that look like they came from a competing restaurant, I don't think its any harder to fake reviews since the impetus is on people reporting reviews anyway.
wlesieutre 7y ago
Apple hasn’t wanted to compete with Google on business listings for their maps, so they integrated yelp instead. It’s terrible. Here’s hoping that their push to bring maps data in house is followed by doing the same for this.
- dhritzkiv 7y ago
  In-house data or at least switching to Foursquare (like they use in Europe).
  - athenot 7y ago
    I don't understand Foursquare. They are perfectly positionned to compete against Yelp, and I even try to make an effort to use them but their insistence on gamification is very off-putting. Meanwhile, Facebook has been aggressively building its own database.
loceng 7y ago
The whole VC-funded industrial complex and their bad behaviours will start collapsing rapidly within 10 years - their bad behaviour and tactics have just gone on for too long; it could be faster, hard to predict exponentials.
- tfha 7y ago
  It'll collapse after the VCs have exited though, so who cares?
- asdff 7y ago
  Call me a cynic, but why should it stop if it works for the VCs? They don't care about the product or the devs or the users experience, just their return. Plenty of things on this world are absolutely abhorrent but continue to this day because they make someone good money.
  - delfinom 7y ago
    Because regulation is coming, or the old saying "this is why we can't have nice things". They are making money out the ass but are conjuring up one hell of a storm that is about to brutalize the industry.
callinyouin 7y ago
> I had to install their app to get in line at a local restaurant This happened to me somewhat recently, though I'm unsure whether it was Yelp or some other app I was asked to install. It's a little arrogant for a restaurant owner to think it's fair to assume all their patrons are willing (or even able!) to install an app on their phone for the sole purpose of getting on their waiting list. This was not a fancy, special, or unique place, and there are tons of options for dining out in my town. When they said it was my only option for getting in line I told them thanks but no thanks and went somewhere else.
- patejam 7y ago
  I'm not sure what app it is, but I really really like the feature where you can see exactly how many groups (and their sizes) are in front of you in line. Makes it easy to decide when to start heading back to the restaurant or when to order another drink at the bar you're hanging out at. Maybe not Yelp, but I thought most had a basic texting option as well? If not, that's lame.
  - lovehashbrowns 7y ago
    Yelp does have that feature that tells you how many people are in front of you. It's a really nice feature, too. I was able to walk around the Japantown mall in SF while I waited for our seat. I'd actually be happy with it if I didn't already hate yelp for their scummy things.
  - atmz 7y ago
    Disclaimer: I worked on this feature. Yelp has a texting option; the app is required to view your 'live' place in line. The app (or website, or mobile site) also allows you to get in line without having to physically arrive at the restaurant and talk to the host.
slenk 7y ago
That would make me immediately leave the restaurant for good.
mikestew 7y ago
I had to install their app to get in line at a local restaurant. There is no food on this planet that I need to eat so badly that I would allow the Yelp app anywhere near one of my mobile devices.
atmz 7y ago
Disclaimer: I worked on this feature. If you walk in to the restaurant, you don't need to install the app. The app will let you view your live place in line, but you can leave the line/get notified when your table is ready vis SMS. If you want to get in line before you show up the restaurant, you can do that via the app, or the www site, or the mobile site.
- cdolan 7y ago
  Did you work on it as NoWait or at Yelp (formerly NoWait). If you worked on it as the original NoWait, have you seen any changes, positive or negative, now that the feature is under Yelp's umbrella?
  - atmz 7y ago
    I worked on it from the Yelp side during the intitial partnership/integration. So, I can't comment on the NoWait perspective, but I will say that almost all of the NoWait software team is still working at Yelp 2+ years post-aquisition.
    - shostack 7y ago
      What's the general Yelp employee vibe like when news like this comes out about features they've worked on? Is it a feeling of "meh, we're growing revenue" or more of a "they completely misunderstood the value we're delivering based on what our users asked for" scenario?
      - atmz 7y ago
        Some of both; people do care, but not everyone loves every feature. I feel that small business owners tend to be less tech savvy and more open to conspiratorial thinking, which leads to a lot of attention to anything Yelp does. If you read the comments even here on hn, many are not about the actual thing in question and many make accusations of unfair practises which have neve been accompanied by evidence. In this particular case, we redirect calls about delivery just for restaurants who have signed a contract with GrubHub (which presumably included language allowing GrubHub to do this), so that GrubHub can attribute orders as coming "from Yelp" and charge for them the same way as they do online orders. I think there's some interesting things to discuss there, but it's not an obvious "this is wrong" feature to me. (and the delivery market as a whole is a little messy -- see the Doordash tipping controversy for an example of something that I do feel is wrong and I would not be happy working on)

by tjr225 7y ago

skrowl 7y ago

I had that same experience. Google Maps is already on your phone for navigation and I've found that it's ratings & reviews to be more reliable than Yelps.

stri8ed 7y ago

I use Yelp since its significantly harder to fake reviews on it than it is on Google. That, and the community culture is centered on high-quality reviews.

Fjolsvith 7y ago
As a Google guide, I can flag irrelevant content in Google reviews.
- stri8ed 7y ago
  The volume of fake reviews is simply too much, and its much cheaper to create them, than it is to combat them. A good measure of this is, compare the prices for fake reviews on both platforms, I suspect Google will be significantly cheaper. Its a tough problem to solve, no doubt, but Yelp chooses to error on the side of caution, and will sometimes flag legitimate reviews as "not recommended reviews" as a result.
- abawany 7y ago
  I like and have used Google reviews for a while after having had enough of Yelp's issues, to the point where I removed my many reviews from Yelp. However, I think Google has a ways to go to remove junk reviews. For example, 'Baguette et Chocolat' near Austin pissed off some open-carry person, who I think also runs a gun blog, last year by asking him to leave when he ignored their state-law-compliant signs prohibiting the same. He then proceeded to command his fans to leave bad reviews for this restaurant, and they complied in droves leaving useful gems such as 'Found out the owners are hoplophobes. Never giving them my business again.' . I spent quite a bit of time reporting these and I think many others did as well. Yelp shut down review logging for this restaurant fairly quickly at the time but I am not sure Google did anything - the above "review" is still present as of today. I am disappointed with Google but have come to realize that they embody the opposite of the motto: "if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well." Edit: Google still allows logging reviews without comments, which further worsens the problem.
dhd415 7y ago
The quality of Yelp must be location-specific. Where I live, Yelp reviews are borderline worthless with chain restaurants with mediocre food and service scoring at or above legitimately worthwhile restaurants. I don't know whether to attribute that to the gaming of reviews or the pedestrian tastes of the Yelp reviewers in my area.
- stri8ed 7y ago
  The quantity of reviews is super important. Anybody can build a 5 star rating by getting 3 friends to post reviews. Do these restaurants with "mediocre food" have many reviews?
astura 7y ago
Why is it harder to fake reviews on Yelp?
- stri8ed 7y ago
  The algorithm's are much stricter, and most such reviews will be automatically hidden by Yelp, under "not recommended reviews". https://www.yelp-support.com/article/Why-would-a-review-not-be-recommended?l=en_US https://www.yelp-support.com/article/Why-would-a-review-not-...
asdff 7y ago
I've seen plenty of yelp reviews that look like they came from a competing restaurant, I don't think its any harder to fake reviews since the impetus is on people reporting reviews anyway.

wlesieutre 7y ago

Apple hasn’t wanted to compete with Google on business listings for their maps, so they integrated yelp instead. It’s terrible. Here’s hoping that their push to bring maps data in house is followed by doing the same for this.

dhritzkiv 7y ago
In-house data or at least switching to Foursquare (like they use in Europe).
- athenot 7y ago
  I don't understand Foursquare. They are perfectly positionned to compete against Yelp, and I even try to make an effort to use them but their insistence on gamification is very off-putting. Meanwhile, Facebook has been aggressively building its own database.

loceng 7y ago

The whole VC-funded industrial complex and their bad behaviours will start collapsing rapidly within 10 years - their bad behaviour and tactics have just gone on for too long; it could be faster, hard to predict exponentials.

tfha 7y ago
It'll collapse after the VCs have exited though, so who cares?
asdff 7y ago
Call me a cynic, but why should it stop if it works for the VCs? They don't care about the product or the devs or the users experience, just their return. Plenty of things on this world are absolutely abhorrent but continue to this day because they make someone good money.
- delfinom 7y ago
  Because regulation is coming, or the old saying "this is why we can't have nice things". They are making money out the ass but are conjuring up one hell of a storm that is about to brutalize the industry.

callinyouin 7y ago

> I had to install their app to get in line at a local restaurant This happened to me somewhat recently, though I'm unsure whether it was Yelp or some other app I was asked to install. It's a little arrogant for a restaurant owner to think it's fair to assume all their patrons are willing (or even able!) to install an app on their phone for the sole purpose of getting on their waiting list. This was not a fancy, special, or unique place, and there are tons of options for dining out in my town. When they said it was my only option for getting in line I told them thanks but no thanks and went somewhere else.

patejam 7y ago
I'm not sure what app it is, but I really really like the feature where you can see exactly how many groups (and their sizes) are in front of you in line. Makes it easy to decide when to start heading back to the restaurant or when to order another drink at the bar you're hanging out at. Maybe not Yelp, but I thought most had a basic texting option as well? If not, that's lame.
- lovehashbrowns 7y ago
  Yelp does have that feature that tells you how many people are in front of you. It's a really nice feature, too. I was able to walk around the Japantown mall in SF while I waited for our seat. I'd actually be happy with it if I didn't already hate yelp for their scummy things.
- atmz 7y ago
  Disclaimer: I worked on this feature. Yelp has a texting option; the app is required to view your 'live' place in line. The app (or website, or mobile site) also allows you to get in line without having to physically arrive at the restaurant and talk to the host.

slenk 7y ago

That would make me immediately leave the restaurant for good.

mikestew 7y ago

I had to install their app to get in line at a local restaurant. There is no food on this planet that I need to eat so badly that I would allow the Yelp app anywhere near one of my mobile devices.

atmz 7y ago

Disclaimer: I worked on this feature. If you walk in to the restaurant, you don't need to install the app. The app will let you view your live place in line, but you can leave the line/get notified when your table is ready vis SMS. If you want to get in line before you show up the restaurant, you can do that via the app, or the www site, or the mobile site.

cdolan 7y ago
Did you work on it as NoWait or at Yelp (formerly NoWait). If you worked on it as the original NoWait, have you seen any changes, positive or negative, now that the feature is under Yelp's umbrella?
- atmz 7y ago
  I worked on it from the Yelp side during the intitial partnership/integration. So, I can't comment on the NoWait perspective, but I will say that almost all of the NoWait software team is still working at Yelp 2+ years post-aquisition.
  - shostack 7y ago
    What's the general Yelp employee vibe like when news like this comes out about features they've worked on? Is it a feeling of "meh, we're growing revenue" or more of a "they completely misunderstood the value we're delivering based on what our users asked for" scenario?
    - atmz 7y ago
      Some of both; people do care, but not everyone loves every feature. I feel that small business owners tend to be less tech savvy and more open to conspiratorial thinking, which leads to a lot of attention to anything Yelp does. If you read the comments even here on hn, many are not about the actual thing in question and many make accusations of unfair practises which have neve been accompanied by evidence. In this particular case, we redirect calls about delivery just for restaurants who have signed a contract with GrubHub (which presumably included language allowing GrubHub to do this), so that GrubHub can attribute orders as coming "from Yelp" and charge for them the same way as they do online orders. I think there's some interesting things to discuss there, but it's not an obvious "this is wrong" feature to me. (and the delivery market as a whole is a little messy -- see the Doordash tipping controversy for an example of something that I do feel is wrong and I would not be happy working on)