Yelp Reviewing

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Yelp

[[Image:|frameless|300px|]] "Yelp Reviewing App" text Type type Launch Date 2004 Status Active Product Line Yelp Reviewing Application Platform Yelp Website Yelp

Y

elp is an iOS application/website whose purpose is to “connect people with great local businesses” . These businesses may include, but are not limited to restaurants, hair salons, bars, coffee shops, gas stations, drugstores, nightlife, and shopping locations. Yelp accesses a user’s location with their permission and based on their selection from the options above, the app will provide a list of nearby locations to satisfy the request. The Yelp user also has the opportunity to narrow down the results based on the amount of money they would like to spend, whether the business is currently open, whether the business delivers their services, or even whether the business accepts online reservations.

History

Y

elp started out small. It was considered a startup company when it originated ten years ago. However, it wasn’t always an iOS application. Instead, “Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons funded a glorified “email circle” that allowed friends to directly swap business reviews.” It was more difficult to become a part of this “email circle” than it is to download the app on the apple store today. The difference between then and now is that everyone who has the Yelp app in today’s day and age has access to the reviews for all of the businesses that are listed on it. With more users in more locations around the world, Yelp’s network has expanded and has effectively become a more efficient system.

If you want to download from the Apple Store, click here. If you want to learn more about Yelp’s history, click here.

Features

A

s the company has progressed, it has added many features that contribute to the experiences that users have on the App. It allows users to rate local businesses on a scale ranging from 1 star to 5 stars: 1 star meaning that the user had a terrible experience, and 5 stars meaning that the user had a fantastic experience. It also has a Question and Answer feature, where users can ask on a businesses page about specific details regarding their services. Yelp also allows users to post photos, filter their searches, respond to reviews using comments.

Ratings

Yelp’s platform was established based on the users: the number of users that utilize the app and their contributions to the app. In other words, Yelp was created with lists of businesses around the world and information associated with their payments and amenities, but their ratings and reviews were initialized as a blank interface. It allows anyone who has an account to rank their experience on a scale from one to five. These ratings may or may not influence people in the future from using a business’s services.

Comments

Comments are construed underneath the ratings, so that people have other ways of responding to experiences that people have had with a business. They are important for others to develop an idea as to if there is a general consensus on whether the business was successful with their services or not.

Photos

While reviews are a good indicator as to whether the local business is a good one, a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes, it is important, for example in a restaurant, to see whether the food looks appetizing to the user, or if the restaurant is clean. As much as aesthetics don’t determine whether the food is good quality, some people value the atmosphere of the restaurant when determining if they should go there. Photos are the only ways that users can access that information without being physically present in the restaurant, in this case.

Categories/Filters

Yelp allows a user to specify their preferences. For example, if a user were to look for a restaurant, they would be able to specify whether they would like Japanese food, pizza, Mexican, Chinese, thai, etc. They also have the options of filtering based on price ranges, whether the restaurant delivers, whether the restaurant has a bar, and even whether a restaurant is good for big groups of people. Hair salons would have similar filters, such as “Accepts Online Appointments”, “Open Now”, etc. These filters allow a user to find a local business that matches their preferences as quickly as possible. Filtering has created a better interface for Yelp.

Yelp Growth

Y

elp is estimated to be worth five billion dollars. The founders of the company were in an unfamiliar city where they needed a doctor and they believed the best way to find one was by "word of mouth". Yelp has evolved to be used with all different types of businesses. As more businesses have been incorporated, more people have become involved in submitting and retrieving reviews. As the amount of reviews submitted increases, not only does the accuracy of the ratings increase because a general consensus is usually formed, but more people are going to think that Yelp is a great application/website.

Ethical Implications

Deception

There have been several complaints regarding "Yelp bullying businesses to pay for better reviews" Users in society are deceived when they look up a particular business and see all positive reviews (of a poorly rated business) until they click on "See more reviews". Many have accused Yelp of allowing businesses to hide their "bad reviews" and deceiving all of the people use the application. People have also accused yelp of pressuring or allowing companies to pay for only good reviews to ever be shown. "The U.S. Federal Trade Commission received more than 2,000 consumer complaints about Yelp from 2008 to March 4, 2014."

Response Bias

There is also the ethical issue of Response Bias present. Most of the people that review places online feel extreme about their experiences with the business. 47% of the ratings are 5 stars

Privacy

Yelp has created a privacy setting that allows businesses to access information regarding your demographics.