Yelp To "Clarify" How Advertising Affects Listing 53
WrongSizeGlass writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Yelp is going to change some features in the wake of the class-action suit brought against it. Yelp has been accused of extortion; the Yelp co-founder denies all. The NY Times Bits blog has more details about the changes Yelp intends to make. According to Ars, the business that filed the lawsuit says that the newly announced changes do not address their original complaints at all."
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
WTF is Yelp?
Re:FIRST POST (Score:5, Funny)
Re:FIRST POST (Score:5, Informative)
It is a website on the internet, where you can post reviews of things. Mostly restaurants, but apparently also hospitals. It's gotten popular enough that businesses care what their Yelp reviews are like, because it can meaningfully impact business. There are allegations that Yelp takes advantage of this to "suggest" that businesses become paying advertisers, if they'd like their reviews page to look good.
Re:FIRST POST (Score:4, Insightful)
Just so you know businesses care about all websites that have a high Google Rank. I, almost daily, deal with astroturfing except I have no problems researching and outing these people when I catch them. Nothing better than teaching businesses not to be fucking stupid. Here's today's example: http://www.lazylightning.org/rack-shack-bbq-burnsville-mn#comment-49534 [lazylightning.org]
Yelp was helping them be stupid while being stupid themselves. Double negatives are a no-no.
Re:FIRST POST (Score:4, Interesting)
It is funny to me that this story comes up on slashdot now. Just two days ago, I went to pick up my dog from the day care place, and the owner asked me if I use Yelp. I told her it was crap and that you can never believe anything you see there, but she (rightfully) said that other people don't see it that way. It seems Yelp had deleted all their positive reviews, and only kept the one bad one. This is a business started by a couple young people who have obviously put all of their eggs into this particular basket. It makes me really angry, but I don't know what I can do to Yelp to get them to stop. Ignoring them would do no good, because that's what I was doing before and that obviously wasn't working.
The world needs a way to hold companies like Yelp accountable. My experience with the dog place made me wonder if maybe there was some legal structure a company could use. For example, NotYelp.com does what Yelp does, but sells $1 contracts with anybody who will buy them that the reviewing system meets certain requirements, like not purging positive reviews from businesses that don't advertise with you. This would create an assurance for other people that NotYelp.com would have to be crazy to do untrustworthy things, which should make NotYelp.com reliable and worthy of your trust.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It is funny to me that this story comes up on slashdot now. Just two days ago, I went to pick up my dog from the day care place, and the owner asked me if I use Yelp. I told her it was crap and that you can never believe anything you see there, but she (rightfully) said that other people don't see it that way. It seems Yelp had deleted all their positive reviews, and only kept the one bad one. This is a business started by a couple young people who have obviously put all of their eggs into this particular basket. It makes me really angry, but I don't know what I can do to Yelp to get them to stop. Ignoring them would do no good, because that's what I was doing before and that obviously wasn't working.
The world needs a way to hold companies like Yelp accountable. My experience with the dog place made me wonder if maybe there was some legal structure a company could use. For example, NotYelp.com does what Yelp does, but sells $1 contracts with anybody who will buy them that the reviewing system meets certain requirements, like not purging positive reviews from businesses that don't advertise with you. This would create an assurance for other people that NotYelp.com would have to be crazy to do untrustworthy things, which should make NotYelp.com reliable and worthy of your trust.
You work for NotYelp don't you?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Leo Laporte's signoff from his canceled TV show: "Don't cry, don't moan, don't yelp! Just Call for help."
Re: (Score:1)
This is probably because nerds despise overt advertising and TV programs in general since with few exceptions they tend to be oriented towards lowest common denominator morons.
Re: (Score:2)
The podcasters that started after TechTV disbanded, including Rev3, Twit, CNET's podcasting group, and Mevio have all proven you can make money with geek ads, they just need to be voiced by the hosts (instead of a 30-second comedy bit that's contradicted by the main show) and kept topically relevant to tech.
Re: (Score:2)
The other importance of the ads is that the hosts themselves use and enjoy the service. Twit especially, as Leo makes it a point to use all the products without being comped for them. He only did ads for Ford Sync after buying himself a new Mustang and using it himself. GoToMeeting and Audible are two other services he uses exclusively and raves about because he is happy with the product, and that has made them satisfied long-term sponsors of the show.
In other words, turn it from being an advertisement
Re: (Score:2)
No. (now GTFO).
slightly relevant, slightly not (Score:5, Informative)
One of the mentioned changes --- giving a link to see the reviews that Yelp's filtered out --- addresses some of the concerns, by at least making it possible to research what Yelp is filtering / not filtering (assuming they really show all reviews in the unfiltered view). The other change the article mentions seems totally besides the point though: the fact that businesses who paid could choose a review to always appear first was never the problem, because that was up-front and part of the advertising package. Removing that feature doesn't even seem necessary.
What the controversy is over is: did or didn't Yelp modify its filtering for particular entries based on whether they were advertisers, and did or didn't they get people (employees or associates) to add positive or negative reviews based on whether they were advertisers? And, separately from that, did their sales staff offer or threaten to do any of those things as part of the attempt to sell ads (and if they did, was that Yelp policy)?
Fire the sales staff. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the inherent problem. Even if Yelp's policy specifically denies anybody's targeting non-advertisers for unfairly bad profiles, the sales team is made of individuals upset they're not getting a commission from the guy who decided not to buy ads. So, what's going to stop the sales team from trashing the profile of the non-advertiser? This is impossible to prevent unless the site has a staff-free sales system, like Google does with AdWords.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Google has a premium service with a dedicated account rep once you spend 10,000 a month for 3 months.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Google doesn't allow just anybody to tweak PageRank anonymously.
That we know of.
Irresponsible "Article" (Score:3, Interesting)
I searched the linked articles, and several articles linked from those, but couldn't find the word "clarify" in any of Yelp's statements. In fact, the only use I found was also in quotes, in the Ars article.
It appears Ars has decided to substitute scare quotes for "commentary." Readers ought to be informed that the "journalist" may be misleading them, because in fact, Yelp's changes (as "reported" by Ars) do not aim to "clarify how advertising affects listing."
(Please note that my last use of quotes was not intended to scare, but to set off language that came from another source. Sorry if I frightened anyone.)
Screw Yelp (Score:4, Insightful)
If they were on the up and up to begin with, they wouldn't have to "clarify" anything.
Stop using Yelp. They have no credibility. Google Maps is now aggregating reviews of businesses. Use them instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Basically, don't trust ANY online reviews.
Maybe those complaints are unfounded? (Score:1)
Yelp has been around for quite a while now. They turn up pretty highly listed when you search for businesses (at least in the Silicon Valley area). Their reviews are written by people like you and I who have visited these businesses and wish to let others know what their experiences were. When I'm trying to figure out where to eat I sometimes hit Google for suggestions and Yelp is always right there in the top listings.
Do those Yelp reviews affect where I'm going to go (and take others)? You bet it does.
Re:Maybe those complaints are unfounded? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, rouge is more of a reddish-pink, so "rouge member" is a very accurate description.
Re: (Score:2)
If someone tells you that a place is bad, but then you find out that person lies 10% of the time, will you still believe them every time that they say a place is bad?
That'd be like going to a place that has been known to randomly kick people in the balls. I mean, they don't always kick people in the balls, so why possibly believe they will ever kick you in the balls?
Dear slobbleman, fuck you (Score:5, Interesting)
So last year the business I work for started getting AstroTurf by a competing business. I work in an entertainment type venue at night, yadda yadda yadda, whatever...
Our competitor basically said that we were a dull venue, but if folks wanted a non-dull venue to please try theirs. They and their gang would re-write their reviews on a weekly basis just so it would float to the top. To the yelp staff, these fake reviews were deemed credible because one of the ringleaders of this astroturfing had an "Elite" next to his name, I guess that makes him special.
One of my regulars, who is also a yelp "Elite" responded by rewriting his review, but included a ton of links to youtube video of our venue that wasn't staged, showing it was lively. Yelp removed the review saying "It contained to many external links" after the other "Elite" douchebag and his buddies flagged it. (When google was thinking about buying yelp, I sent snail mail letters to the google executive staff with a printout of the review and an explanation. I put in big bold letters googles mission statement of "DO NO EVIL". I hope it changed their minds when it came to buying them out)
Back on subject though. NOTHING got yelp to let up. While all this was happening, we got emails and phone calls from yelp salespeople *CONSTANTLY* promising this would all stop if we joined their ad program. We even tried their "Owner comments" but after a few weeks they banned us because we didn't comment according to *their* guidelines.
One reviewer said, "Your waitress looks like the hooker from hamburger hill, me so horny". I think I said something equally offensive to him. Yelp holds business's at a double standard for how they can comment from the reviewers, it's complete bullshit. We got banned from commenting for responding the way our reviewer did? Why didn't they ban him?
Eventually I got tired of it. I recruited friends to start photoshopping the heads of some of the astroturfers on transvestites, gay porn, whatever. We'd post this weekly on our website. We also started dropping dox on our website on slobbleman and the rest of his crew.
Like magic, our sort order returned to normal. Yelp stopped calling us, the little shittards that astroturfing us stopped as well.
I hate yelp. I hate slobbleham and his whole fucking extortion scheme. I have no doubt there will be some slashdotters that are "ELITES" that will have a problem with what I say, and what I saw but let me ask you this..
Have you ever worked at a business that was being actively astroturfed by a competitor? Did yelp offer to genuinely help you or did they tell you paraphrasically "Pay us or go fuck yourself?"
That's what they told me, paraphrasically. Fuck you slobbleman, I hope you choke on a dick.
Re: (Score:2)
Links, photos, uploads, web.archive.org, please
Re: (Score:1)
OH PLEASE. That has never been Google's "mission statement". It appears in a small subsection in their company page and refers to their particular way of placing and identifying advertisements. That's all it's there for.
Can we just finally kill the "Google Promises To Do No Evil" meme? It is not Google's corporate motto, nor do they pretend that it is. Somebody just spotted it there and blew it out of all proportion.
Please?
Re: (Score:2)
People are just trying to needle Google for "being evil". Setting aside the minor semantic point of whether it was their "mission statement" (does anyone at a corporation ever care about their "mission statement" other than overpaid execs?), don't you think "they never promised they wouldn't be evil" is a pretty weak defense to "they're evil"?
All this is a separate question from "are they evil", which I have no interest in weighing in on here.
I see what you did there. (Score:2)
from the former-lawsuit-is-an-ex-tort department
ex-tort
extort
Yelp was accused of extortion! I get it!
No, really, I liked that pun; keep up the good work.
The Yelp approach doesn't scale down. (Score:5, Insightful)
The fundamental problem with user review sites is that they don't work unless the number of reviewers is large compared to the number of things reviewed. Yelp needs a statistically significant sample size per thing reviewed to work. Movies, yes. Resorts, probably. Major restaurants, maybe. Local plumbers, no. Joe's Plumbing will be reviewed by Joe, Joe's brother in law, Joe's plumbing supply house rep, and maybe a customer.
That's bad enough, but Yelp sales reps "making you an offer you can't refuse" is worse. There are small businesses that live in terror of Yelp.
Back in the 1990s, the SF Bay Area had a "rating service" which got into trouble for extortion. This was before the Web got big. They used window stickers in participating businesses, and heavily promoted their ratings. Their sales pitch to businesses was "your competitor has one of our stickers, shouldn't you buy one too?". They were shut down.
This has gone one before -- (Score:2)
-- check the history of the Better Business Bureau, it's rating system, how it is financed, etc.
Yelp is just more of the same of the worst part of the BBB, but on the web.
Nothing new here, move along, move along.