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July 9, 2007

Yelp Is Way Cooler Than I Thought

Michael Arrington

49 comments »

Yelp, a user generated review site that continues to do very well with traffic growth, was still a bit boring in my opinion. Reviews of the local restaurants and flower shops are useful for some people, but it isn’t exactly as sexy as hanging out in MySpace.

Perhaps I’m wrong though…some of the bored housewives in silicon valley may want to check out this review of Jose’s Landscaping in Menlo Park. Seems like a full service operation.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. PSST! it

    July 24th, 2007 at 4:57 pm

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    July 25th, 2007 at 9:47 pm

  3. Just a random blog !

    August 2nd, 2007 at 6:04 pm

Comments

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  1. bernie lomax

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:17 pm

    Yelp is amazing.

  2. J-son

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

    Thanks, Mike–Now Jose is going to raise his prices! :P

  3. KevinL.

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:25 pm

    Yelp is losing its significance as 60 people write about a business just to tell their life story leading up to the event.

    It’s fun to read about ‘mow and blow jobs’ but their reviewers just try to one-up each other on being funny as opposed to writing a ‘real’ review.

  4. noob

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:31 pm

    “I worked out a flat fee for a mow and a blow job…”

    Nice, I see you chose your screenshot carefully. ellohell

  5. lemon obrien

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:32 pm

    yelp is a scam; they pay people, mostly young fresh out of school attractive women to review stuff…its canned.

  6. Drama 2.0

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:38 pm

    Nobody has reviewed my janitorial service yet. It’s just par for the course. We clean up the sh*t for some of Silicon Valley’s top firms and get sh*t in return. :(

  7. Vijay Teach Me

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:40 pm

    Hahahahhaahhaah can not laugh harder on the keyboard, what a review….

    Man I want to be reviewed as computer technician, fix the hard drive or the softdrive, and just perfect cables to plug in,

    Vijay

  8. Andrew

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:43 pm

    I do not think “blow job” means - head in this instance.

  9. Drama 2.0

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:57 pm

    All of Marian G.’s insightful reviews can be found at:

    http://www.yelp.com/user_detai.....NWJoesKmmw

    Thanks for posting this review, Michael. I just realized that the reason that Drama-Free Janitorial isn’t getting great reviews from our customers is that we’re not a “full-service” janitorial service. From this moment forward, that’s changing.

  10. Noah

    July 9th, 2007 at 1:07 pm

    “Seems like a full service operation.”

    Hahahahahaha.

  11. Rookie

    July 9th, 2007 at 1:23 pm

    Andrew: ORLY?

  12. website copywriter

    July 9th, 2007 at 1:30 pm

    Some people will find it useful, I’d imagine — and when I say some, that includes me.

  13. Henry

    July 9th, 2007 at 1:36 pm

    Would it be more or less humorous if it said “blow and a mow job?”

  14. Padraig

    July 9th, 2007 at 1:49 pm

    I think they’ve cottoned on and taken down the post

  15. Gary M

    July 9th, 2007 at 1:51 pm

    Guys & Gals, Yelp is not a scam — I have found dozens of restaurants that I love that I normally would never have taken a second glance at. Yes, some of the reviewers go overboard with their reviews (they’re encouraged by Yelp to make them “interesting”) but never has Yelp failed to meet what the general reviews have said about a restaurant — if its highly rated, you can bet that the food is yummy. Also, their mobile version kicks ass as it is fast and just gives what you need when you’re on the road looking for something.

    One issue I see comes in reviews of things like “Auto Body Shops” or “Dentists”… the average person does not use multiple auto body shops or multiple dentists, so their ratings are truly not very useful as it is not truly comparative.

    Overall I recommend Yelp highly, and friends I have referred it to love it.

  16. Richard Corsale

    July 9th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

    thats funny :) we have some troll from yelp.com doing a very poor job of disguising a pr post

  17. Tien Nguyen

    July 9th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

    # lemon obrien

    July 9th, 2007 at 12:32 pm

    yelp is a scam; they pay people, mostly young fresh out of school attractive women to review stuff…its canned.
    —
    Any proof of this Dan Rather?

  18. Al

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    Take a look at yelp’s intern jobs

    http://www.yelp.com/jobs

    especially the last sentence and i quote:
    **
    Note: This is non-paying gig at this point, but college credit, a stellar letter of recommendation, the opportunity to work around your own schedule and many fun perks are available.
    **

  19. Jay (living in First Life)

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    Yelp is pretty useful. Most reviewers are real people - you have to provide a real photo and name to become an Elite reviewer.

    That being said, the tendency of reviews online in a social setting is to “one-up” the previous reviewer which leads to some hilarious reviews which keeps it entertaining.

    Yelp is far better than Citysearch and other similar rating services because of the social nature. Furthermore, on Yelp, one can say “I’m looking for X restaurant in Y neighborhood” on the message board, and the community helps you find one.

    This is actually a useful social site.

  20. buster

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:16 pm

    yep. i swear by yelp too. i don’t understand the yelp hate. with a bb pearl, yelp mobile, and google maps anything is possible.

  21. Ed

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:25 pm

    I think even more hilarious are the serious comments to this post.

  22. Kewtr

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    Shoot, I had just attempted to convince Kari this isn’t some big frat party, and now look. Hey!Spread was defensible– this is pure lowbrow guy humor at its finest. I’m going to get a beer as I chuckle to myself. “Blow job…” He he he…

  23. Gary M

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:28 pm

    To Richard Corsale, have a little too much paranoia for breakfast this morning? See any reptillians recently? The Illuminati out after you? No… well, I am not a troll from Yelp, dunce. You think what I wrote was PR? No, its just that I actually can write. I use Yelp. Period. I am a manager of usability for a very successful dot com company. Yelp is

  24. Gary M

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:34 pm

    To Richard Corsale: have a little too much paranoia for breakfast this morning? See any reptillians recently? The Illuminati out after you? No…? Well, I am not a troll from Yelp, you dunce. You think what I wrote was PR? No, its just that I actually can write. I use Yelp. Period. I am a manager of usability for a dot com company in LA… and it’s not Yelp (i.e. Atlanta is not in Los Angeles) . Yes, Richard, there really ARE products out there that are built well and are useful… time to wake up and smell the coffee, Richy.

  25. Phil

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:58 pm

    I’m still confused about whom is blowing whom unless Marian is hiding something. Jose, care to comment? He’ll be back in the afternoon unless he is checking this post on his iPhone.

  26. dave

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

    nice find! some women apparently do get really bored…but hey, she’s a creative financier - her valley husband should be proud (if there is one)!

    on a serious aside, there’s a lot yelp could do to improve - including a cap on reviews with the ability to rate up and unpublish the crappiest (perhaps just buried but visible upon request, like the comment system on omidyar.net)

  27. Eric

    July 9th, 2007 at 3:24 pm

    MA, you need to get out more
    http://wordpress.com/tag/mow-and-blow/

    its just the leafblower guys…

  28. bernie lomax

    July 9th, 2007 at 3:27 pm

    ORLY, oh really! No way, like ORLY!

  29. Marian G.

    July 9th, 2007 at 5:22 pm

    Wow! I didn’t realize what a reaction I would get raving about my landscape gardener! In our neighborhood, we refer to “mow and blow” for over 20 plus years. Yes Eric is correct. It’s a leaf “blower” and they “mow” the lawn. I didn’t expect such an observation, I was so happy to get my front and back yard done for under $13,000 done in a week! And, to have a regular garden work done at such an agreeable rate. I am retired and a baby boomer. (oh, are you going to find a double entendre for that too?) No money was ever received for my reviews.

  30. Will

    July 9th, 2007 at 5:53 pm

    Could one more person please enlighten all of us that “blow job” really means leafblower in this instance?

  31. anna

    July 9th, 2007 at 5:56 pm

    You know I reviewed my landlord at Yelp. I was so happy to see it come up #2 on Google in searching for them. They are awful, but several people have written me asking what building i’m in (they manage a bunch).. very satisfying to know you can share the knowledge about a service like that.

  32. bdb

    July 9th, 2007 at 6:15 pm

    In other news regarding the misuse of the English language in CA, they also use the article “the” in front of the highway they are describing: “take the 4″, “Get on the 405″, etc. (Hint: you DO NOT NEED “the” to describe the highway when using the designated state or federal number).

    Ugh!

    Were you seriously unaware that “blow job” is commonly used to refer to something else?

    Do you really care if they use a leaf-blower rather than a broom?

  33. bernie lomax

    July 9th, 2007 at 6:25 pm

    Hey Will! I think blow job refers to blowing leaves around to clear a pathway. ORLY!

  34. Marian G.

    July 9th, 2007 at 6:26 pm

    My front and back yard is 2,000 square feet. It would take a long time to sweep with a broom. I think that your term bj is commonly used today. It is not common in my circle.

  35. itblows

    July 9th, 2007 at 6:39 pm

    yelp is going bad the way epinions did, bad reviews dont scale.

  36. David Mackey

    July 9th, 2007 at 7:27 pm

    The idea of reviewing sites isn’t a bad idea….And I think MySpace is being abandoned for Facebook - sure you don’t want to change analogies?

  37. mika

    July 9th, 2007 at 7:30 pm

    I must say that techcrunch reviews have been really decreasing in value in the last few months and this is such a good example of that. More likely than not, this was a joke. Why was this techcrunch worthy? What is techcrunch doing these days anyway? Too much money coming in to report on any real technology stories? Hey, why don’t you print a story that degrades guys in some way and see how much conversation you get going.

  38. patricia

    July 9th, 2007 at 7:46 pm

    Well, I think Yelp had/has potential in the sense that City Search sucks, and the idea behind both could be useful, but I don’t think it’s structured to fit that gap and I don’t think it’s useful enough to go beyond people wanting to write reviews about wherever they hang out (which are too hard to read and I end up skipping most). I am on it and write stuff about L.A. but only because I get bored writing about business and fashion, and I don’t think i have in a while. My friend is obsessed with it, but I think she’ll tire of it too.

    They need to do something different. I am not sure what.

  39. fluencev

    July 9th, 2007 at 8:08 pm

    taken a second glance at the site ,o(∩_∩)o..

  40. Simon

    July 10th, 2007 at 8:23 am

    “isn’t exactly as sexy as hanging out in MySpace”

    MySpace is sexy? Michael, you’re great, but you desparately need to get a better life. :)

  41. yellowbot

    July 10th, 2007 at 8:37 am

    Thanks for clearing that up, Marian G! ;-)

  42. Ryan Mickle

    July 10th, 2007 at 12:11 pm

    There is actually probably a much greater chance that one of Jose’s caballeros wrote this review (perhaps while wearing a sun dress, for inspiration).

  43. bernie lomax

    July 10th, 2007 at 7:47 pm

    ORLY!

  44. Keith

    July 13th, 2007 at 4:41 pm

    A website is claiming to help people addicted to yelp:

    http://yhelp.org/

  45. Meredith

    July 18th, 2007 at 6:34 pm

    Marian, just in case you are still reading this - I think most people realized that you were referring to a leaf-blowing service. The reason your review was highlighted was because it was unintentionally funny - of COURSE you meant leaf-blowing, but it came out in a slightly different way that was amusing to some. It isn’t a criticism of you that it was read that way, it’s just an amusing tidbit…nobody thinks you didn’t know what the OTHER meaning of “blow job” was, we just think you were focused on writing a quality review and didn’t realize the double entendre.

    As for everybody saying that Yelp reviews are paid - I was about to say “well damn, where can I sign up, I write mine free!” - but then I realized that Washington DC has intern positions available, so…I guess that’s where I sign up.

    A more interesting question about Yelp is whether a negative review can hurt a small business. I know of one prolific Yelper who quit the service because of a friend’s experience. Someone had not been happy with the business this Yelper’s friend provided, and so posted a review of the business saying they had child molesters working there. This was patently false but Yelp refused to investigate it and the person’s business was hurt as a result. It’s one thing to say “I got really bad service” but it’s another thing entirely to say “my kid got molested” just to be vengeful.

    I agree with those who have said that Yelp Mobile is awesome. Me and my Sidekick 3 definitely love Yelp Mobile. I just wish I could WRITE reviews on the go!

  46. Marian G.

    July 23rd, 2007 at 3:16 am

    Thank you Meredith for your insightful comment. I had no idea to how a simple review could be so effective. There are always two sides to any new idea.

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