This is by far the most compelling pitch I have heard Yelp give for itself: “The big companies are full of spam and misinformation, while we take the time to ge

This is by far the most compelling pitch I have heard Yelp give for itself: “The big companies are full of spam and misinformation, while we take the time to get reviews right.” It is hard not wonder just how much more popular Yelp’s product might be if this message were spread as stridently as its anti-Google arguments. If only it were that simple. Yelp does not personally review reviews. Nobody from Yelp has ever called me to make sure I got my review right and I wasn't being unreasonable. Ensuring that reviews aren't spam is an algorithmic problem. Yes Yelp has some features which provide hints to the algorithm but at the end of the day it's about ML. For every upvote from a fellow reviewer on Yelp, Google has 100 other data points on me as a reviewer. So who is going to get the algo right, Yelp, or Google? My personal experience has been that 4.2 stars on Google means the meal will be good, 5 stars on Yelp means it's a trendy trap with bad food and worse service which I will not enjoy. Go figure.