As a user: I use Yelp quite a bit... but I don't really trust their rating system since I heard a while back that they pay a lot of their reviewers or "marketi

As a user: I use Yelp quite a bit... but I don't really trust their rating system since I heard a while back that they pay a lot of their reviewers or "marketing associates". I've often found myself disagreeing with their ratings. I used Zagats almost exclusively during my corporate days. Reviews seemed pretty trustworthy but the whole annual publishing thing was way too slow. As a business: I've heard from classmates of a Zagat family member that the company does pretty well financially. From what I remember, all my consulting/banking friends got a Zagats membership as a company perk, which helped build brand loyalty and probably generated dependable cash flow. On the other hand, I've heard from media reports that Yelp doesn't generate a lot of cash (they've taken 4 rounds of VC financing). I guess they're waiting for the big exit for their great traffic growth.