September 25, 2007

GarageSeek Rates Mechanics, But Yelp Will Kill This Category Too

Nick Gonzalez

48 comments »

It seems like every time you turn around there’s another site out there trying to help you rate this, that, or the other thing. There’s Rapleaf (people), StreetAdvisor (neighborhood), YourStreet (neighborhood), SodaRatings (soda), and the list goes on (we wrote about Urbanspoon yesterday). Now there’s a new one in private beta, GarageSeek, for rating mechanic’s garages in your area.

With GarageSeek users will be able to share their experiences with mechanics and rate them on several different metrics. When live, the site will provide a potentially very useful service, the ability to check reviews and avoid hiring a shoddy mechanic. However, while a complete database of real reviews is useful, a lot of review verticals don’t offer a real reason to contribute when they start and fragment reviews across multiple domain names users may not care to remember.

Yelp largely solved the chicken and egg problem that comes with user review services, even if they allegedly paid users for reviews to start. They raised over $16 million and generated traction on the service through having a system seeded with content, rewarding top users with over-the-top parties, and focusing on a service that a wide variety of people use frequently, restaurants. The other large people-driven review site, Insiderpages, had the advantage of $9 million in financing and starting back in 2004. Despite this, Insiderpages went through a slew of layoff and eventually sold off to CitySearch for $13 million.

Yelp is already in the auto repair category, and is poised to expose their audience to other review verticals as well. They’ve already moved into non-geographical service reviews such as media outlets. The one question these review verticals need to ask themselves is “Can niche vertical review sites survive up against one general review site, Yelp or otherwise”? My feeling is no.

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chris

September 25th, 2007 at 2:14 pm

What other feelings do you have? Feel free to share your thinking along with your feelings.
Max

September 25th, 2007 at 2:35 pm

I don’t think so: I would say that the long tail for rating sites is indeed very, very long. So a niche vertical review shouldn’t be underestimated. Surely demand for those sites exists - somewhere. and as long as they focus on the tail itself they will have a good chance of survival.
Jeremy

September 25th, 2007 at 2:39 pm

Cute logo, invite only beta coming soon…and, no screen shots? Why not?

In all seriousness though, I could see this trumping Yelp for automotive reviews only. Considering how large that market is, and how yelp = party reviews (to a degree, restaurants, night clubs, meet people, etc), if these guys focused on building community and more importantly, the garage relationships that would really make it fly.

…of course, Yelp could do that too If anybody wants to win in a category, the question they have to ask themselves is this: how are they planning on eating the elephant? Only time will tell, really.
Sim Web 2.0

September 25th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

Nevermind if the concept is flawed, they won’t get far with red text on a grey background.
Andrew

September 25th, 2007 at 2:44 pm

all those yellow pages sites already review places like that

+ people are much more likely to go ask their neighbor for a reccomendation, than trust an anonymous review that can be easily gamed by the actual garages.
JoeTech.com

September 25th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

The problem with that niche is that the return rate for a visitor might be once a year (unless they have a real junker).
mathew johnson

September 25th, 2007 at 2:49 pm

where is the evidence that yelp is such a ‘win’ or ‘big player’?

for some reason compete shows them up in recent months, but alexa (i know, i know) shows a slow and consistent decline for all of 2007. plus their success at selling subscriptions/leads to local businesses is super-debatable both in theory and in execution. plus their success at generating grass-roots content that is un-paid/rewarded is apparently fairly debatable, too. they’ve definitely done a relatively better job in the local reviews space than former and current competitors, but that doesn’t mean that there is much of a viable business on the horizon.
Crab Nebula

September 25th, 2007 at 2:50 pm

People who know about cars are much better reviewers of mechanics than ordinary civilians.

I wouldn’t turn to a general audience site when I can go to a site that attracts experts. It’s about signal to noise.

The restaurant reviews on Chowhound, for example, are vastly superior to Yelp’s, which in San Francisco are demographically narrow and plagued by narcissistic trend-chasing and posing. Chowhounders are varied and very knowledgeable about food….not about merely how deep the scene vibe is.

A side note: cartalk’s mechanic’s files is an excellent resource, though very low tech.
Jeff

September 25th, 2007 at 2:53 pm

I agree with Matt (#9), Yelp hasn’t convinced me they are the category leader.
Tony Stubblebine

September 25th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

The strength of all these sites is in the community. I love yelp because they have a great community of foodies. That doesn’t mean foodies make a great community for rating mechanics. There’s plenty of room for people to compete with yelp in other verticals just by creating a stronger (and not necessarily bigger) community.
Hosting

September 25th, 2007 at 3:02 pm

Web tasarimi very nice
Andrew

September 25th, 2007 at 3:09 pm

agreed with #10…+ on car forums you can actually learn how to work on your own car. Tutorials all over the place from simple things like changing oil…to complicated stuff like changing the engine
Todd

September 25th, 2007 at 3:13 pm

I think niche review sites can last if the niche is passionate enough. Restaurants, yes. Mechanics? I don’t know about that one.
Skater8

September 25th, 2007 at 3:15 pm

I think Nick likes Yelp (inside info).
#17

September 25th, 2007 at 3:20 pm

#9 I agree with you, Yelp’s success totally depends on how the bubble goes, as an independence business they may not survive post-bubble.

Their reviews are not down to the point like Zagat’s, they are blog-like rants, and if you are not into the “Yelp” scene, they are too lengthy to go over, and too often wrong.

The Alexa decline is due to google dropping them from local search results, which was Yelp’s distribution mechanism. Google adding the star rating and reviews in Google Maps results will have a major negative impact on them, since the viurality is just not there.
Thom

September 25th, 2007 at 3:26 pm

TechCrunch - what’s up with all the spam comments recently (comments # 1, 4, 11, 14)? Looks like you’re going to need a captcha on comments to weed this stuff out.
PJA

September 25th, 2007 at 3:31 pm

aren’t review sites only as good as their reviewers?

isn’t vertical search proving effective in certain categories compared to general search?

isn’t vertical social networking effective in certain categories compared to a general social network site?

my socratic teaching should lead you all to the conclusion that there is room for all kinds of vertical review sites, so long as the UGC is well written, relevant and deep enough to gain a consensus. (Are one or two reviews really helpful, since they are likely planted?)
aspir8or

September 25th, 2007 at 3:41 pm

Yelp may have the momentum in review sites, but it is only of use if you live in the US. Maybe sites like Garageseek would be better off setting up base in other countries and grabbing the market share before Yelp wakes up and realises that there are billions more eyeballs outside the US.
Nick Gonzalez

September 25th, 2007 at 3:56 pm

PJA - how many of these verticals can people compete in? I think there are fewer of these than there are startups in these verticals.

Jobtech - agreed that return rate is a huge issue.
Jacob Levy

September 25th, 2007 at 3:57 pm

What about epinions.com, isnt that the grand-daddy of review sites? I think its fine for everything I tried so far, I don’t really see any need for a review site for my dog’s shampoo dispenser
Fedder

September 25th, 2007 at 3:57 pm

Yelp is, at its core, a social networking site for people in their twenties. It has had phenomenal success in this demographic in the Bay Area. I don’t know if their business model can sustain their company as a standalone entity, so it might only be a matter of time before they’re purchased and ruined by a larger company.

In my opinion, there’s always opportunity for a focused niche vertical to thrive in the presence of a horizontal competitor. What if they got the CarTalk guys to participate? What if the car manufacturers started sending interactive content directly to Garageseek? I think a rabid community of grease-stained gearheads will have a very different feel and more useful content than anything produced by the latte-sippers of Yelp. ; )
Marc Miles

September 25th, 2007 at 3:58 pm

Ahhh, to the core. Local search and reviews. One more month or so….and…..

Anyway, here’s what’s BROKEN about yelp….

1. Extortion of business to communicate with reviewers (its not free for a business to sign up)
2. Why the need for one sided stories, its a tired system
3. Star ratings, another tired system
4. Encouraging people to write reviews leads to phony reviews
5. Another local search not taking full advantage of a map/results
6. No profanity filters on reviews, honestly, it comes off as childish
7. There’s a reason yellowpages.com and local.com put yelp.com to shame in the page views category
8. Simply do a google “I hate X” and substitute x for yelp or citysearch and you will see all the reasons why many people and more importantly BUSINESSES dislike these sites.

Sorry for just pointing out the flaws and not being constructive, but, my constructive feedback will come in another form.
trevo

September 25th, 2007 at 4:01 pm

Yeah.. FAR too many Spammy comments here. To you GarageSeek fanboyz… lay off a little, it is pretty obvious that you’re not regular TechCrunch posters.

The problem GarageSeek faces is getting their name out there. How does the regular joe user find out about GarageSeek? Everyone knows about Yelp so they’ll start there…

Think about eBay. How many PC auction sites are there? How many jewelry auction sites are there? Maybe a few super small niches, but by far and large eBay owns the market. Yelp is the eBay of reviews.
Fedder

September 25th, 2007 at 4:05 pm

I disagree with trevo. Yelp doesn’t have nearly the same network effects as eBay. In fact, in some cases, once I get a chance to see the quantity and quality of Yelp’s reviews, I might be more likely to post my review *elsewhere*.
Jimmy Huen

September 25th, 2007 at 4:08 pm

I don’t care how good the reviews are, but if I only need it once a year to find a good and trusted garage, then what use of it is to me the rest of the 364 days?

On top of that, once I find a good trusted garage, what use is it to me at all after that? Would I visit once in a while just for the community? I doubt it.
Mike B

September 25th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

Time to leave your bay area bubble. Yelp isn’t “all that” in most cities outside of San Francisco even with their big pile of VC booty. I imagine lots of niche based review sites can be successful, and most people aren’t going to trust the 20somethings of Yelp with reviews of Mechanics or much else beyond what local bar to hang out at.
Tradervic

September 25th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

Yep, this site will be totally dependent on new users. As Mr. Huen mentioned above, once a mechanic is found and the trust built..why come back? What other services do they offer to come back?…free oil change? Before one can consider this business viable, these questions must be answered.
Jasper

September 25th, 2007 at 4:30 pm

I actually found my mechanic on Yelp and he is awesome. I think one player, probably Yelp, will dominate multiple segments.
Detroit

September 25th, 2007 at 4:37 pm

Chris (1) wins, but in all seriousness: discounting segmented reviewing outlets simply because they serve a vertical as opposed to aggregation is not really a worthwhile argument.

Yelp’s benefit, as many have said, is that it has a community and other activities with greater frequency are well formed. If this site goes after building community, I can see it having legs.

Garage seek’s problem in building a community is that without a proper community platform, the frequency cycles are too long. Sorry, but in 2007 autos aren’t in need of service as much. This might be a little like watch batteries or roof repair — interesting to serve people who need information, but they don’t return often enough to make the acquisition cost/user worthwhile from a PV perspective.
Yelp Sucks

September 25th, 2007 at 4:37 pm

Yelp is for 20 year olds… all vying for attention. The reviews read more like rants and I find that many of the recs are, well, just off.

Yes despite the paid shills on yelp (reminds me of payperpost), uptake outside of major cities is nil.

Yelp had it’s time in the sun, but with no viable business model the only way out is acquisition… While they had some success on the consumer side, they failed in signing up local businesses.

btw, free booz and beer at Yelp parties is not a sustainable business model.
citizen

September 25th, 2007 at 4:45 pm

I think the bigger question is whether Yelp will survive. Probably yes, but they won’t flourish. They are trying to become a neighborhood driven social network not just a review site and I think they’ll find themselves squarely in Facebook’s path unless they start creating more compelling Apps for fb themselves
harish

September 25th, 2007 at 4:54 pm

Yelp is not completely honest
Yelp removes bad reviews .I know one restaurant owner who received a bad review .Since he was a paying customer yelp sales person called him to check if he wanted to remove the review.But the owner let the bad review there as he thought that some bad reviews are necessary to make it look authentic.
Jeff

September 25th, 2007 at 6:02 pm

couldn’t agree with #26 more! Preach on brotha!
Startup News

September 25th, 2007 at 7:29 pm

This kind of niche will work for a site that has access to car addicts otherwise a site like cardomian.com with about 2 million users can easily get all those users to give all kinds of auto related reviews ..
phenom

September 25th, 2007 at 7:44 pm

It will work only for car freaks.
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
whoopie

September 25th, 2007 at 7:51 pm

its not up fpr debate if yelp is the category leader. at the minimum, yahoo local eclipses them in every metric, likely others.

yelp has the same problem that powerset has - their hype machine was run over by facebook
Detroit

September 25th, 2007 at 7:53 pm

A question for the General Motors of the valley: Why doesn’t eBay MOTORS deploy something like this?
ELS

September 25th, 2007 at 8:31 pm

Outside of the bay area Yelp gets really weak.
YIU

September 26th, 2007 at 12:34 am

I think a niche review site WILL ALWAYS BEAT the generalist site. Yelp I find particularly useless. But if a review site had hard core users with actual insight into what they were reviewing I might play. Just to reiterate. YELP IS USELESS, at least in Manhattan.
sputnick

September 26th, 2007 at 3:56 am

Very insightful post, particularly the bit about how Yelp built up a user base. Thank you for this information.
Jackie

September 26th, 2007 at 7:56 am

For those of you outside the Bay area, Yelp also appears to be pretty popular in Chicago and the surrounding burbs (not trying to be obnoxious, just pointing it out). They do have Yelp user parties there too. I wasn’t aware that they charged business owners to participate though, but the paid user thing doesn’t surprise me in the least. I’m a freelance writer and you’d be amazed at all the “be an active user on my new social-networking/reviewing/bookmarking/insert web 2.0 function of choice here site” job postings I see (or maybe not).

I agree with the other posters that the mechanic thing seems a little…unlikely to work. After all, it’s not like cars need servicing that often unless you have a real lemon, and people don’t get passionate about their mechanics like they do restaurants or spas and salons (Yelp has proven to be very useful for that, at least in Chicago), unless they’re total gearheads. It seems that that this site would work better merged with, or as a component of, one of the existing popular car forums, blogs, or websites, otherwise the niche is too narrow.

If you want to see where people are creating awesome community-driven websites and other apps (and possibly win funding for your own idea if you’re entrepreneurial or innovative like that), check this out - http://newschallenge.org. There’s no paid-user or pay to play shenanigans going on there either.
Adrian

September 26th, 2007 at 10:15 am

A plug for Yelp rather than a review for GarageSeek, is it not?
Jim

September 26th, 2007 at 10:34 am

Yelp ‘allegedly’ paid for reviews? Come on, they had ads all over craigslist for months looking for people to be paid reviewers in every new market they went into, same as Insider Pages and Judy’s book.

How is it still ‘alleged’ at this point.
scott

September 27th, 2007 at 1:44 pm

The auto parts/enthusiast space is several years behind the curve with most people only interacting through forums, and horizontal shopping, review, search engines don’t do very well with enthusiast auto.

This leaves a lot of room for sites like http://Streetperformance.com (auto parts vertical shopping) and GarageSeek. You’d be surprised to learn how fast the $37 billion performance auto parts aftermarket is moving online.
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October 3rd, 2007 at 1:06 am

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