When you think about how everyone is being reviewed and critiqued on the Internet lately, it is amazing that something as inherently negative such as Yelp is considered to be a valid source of information.  If you aren’t familiar with it, Yelp.com is website that will allow ANYONE to leave a review or critique about a certain business (restaurants, hotels, plumbers, car dealers, just about anything that takes your cash, etc.).

Right now you are probably thinking, “that’s incredible!  I can make  a sound decision by reading these reviews.”

Here’s where you might want to reconsider what you just thought.  How many times in your money spending life have you thought of actually taking the time to log into something and write a review?  If you are having a wonderful experience or service scenario, these days, you are just thrilled that things are going as advertised and you are getting your money’s worth.

However, (ha), if the experience/service was horrible, I bet you and the majority of others would have enough anger/energy to compose a novella on Yelp.com about how horribly you were treated.

There is nothing in the Yelp mission statement about the balance of positive and negative reviews.  Take a look at the mission statement from the site (my comments are in my WordPress theme’s lame excuse for bold):

Our purpose: To connect people with great local businesses 
10 Things You Should Know About Yelp

1. Yelp was founded in 2004 to help people find great local businesses like dentists, hair stylists and mechanics. (Lovely idea…  All search engines have been doing that for years.  Need a local one?  Try typing your locality in the search… Lazy idiots).
2. Yelp had an average of approximately 78 million monthly unique visitors in Q2 2012. (Big deal.  Do we really give a shit?)
3. Yelpers have written over 30 million local reviews. (Once again.  Quit stroking your corporate ego and give us your real purpose.)
4. In addition to reviews, you can use Yelp to find events, lists and to talk with other Yelpers. (Do you really want to be called a “yelper”?)
5. Every business owner (or manager) can setup a free account to post photos and message her customers. (Last I heard, this was called “e-mail” marketing.  Try using that instead.  “Oh shit!  Can’t you just use facebook?” (barf)).
6. Yelp makes money by selling ads to local businesses – you’ll see these clearly labeled “Yelp Ads” around the site. (HERE LIES THE PURPOSE OF YELP!)
7. Paying advertisers can never change or re-order their reviews. (Really?  How the hell would we know?)
8. Yelp has an automated filter that suppresses a small portion of reviews – it targets those suspicious ones you see on other sites. (What makes a review “suspicious”?  How much is a “small portion” of suppression?  What is the criteria for this “automated filter”?)
9. You can access Yelp via iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and more – see the full list of mobile apps here.  (Can I access it in the newspaper as well?  HA!)
10. The Weekly Yelp brings locals updates on the latest and greatest business openings & other happenings. (aka Spam.)

Left this comment on Huffington post:

To make this system of “everyone is a published critic/reviewer” function properly, it is of UTMOST IMPORTANCE that you submit a GOOD review to yelp as much as you would a bad review. Problem is that people are lazy when they are enjoying themselves and don’t bother saying nice things. Yelp then turns into a truly invalid source for information as it will only contain NEGATIVE COMMENTS. Yelp is irrelevant like most vox populi these days.

in response to this article.

Why did I do all of this?

1. I’m angry with the world lately.
2. Yelp has hurt some people that I know.
3. It has been so long since I seriously sat down and spewed my thoughts into text, and it felt good to do it at the moment.  (see number 1 above).

Read this post very quick.   I may read it tomorrow, and be so embarrassed at how poorly it is written, I may just rip it down as fast as I posted it.  I hope this doesn’t bring anyone down, its more of  an opinion about the way things are changing in the mass media these days….. maybe just a simple request for people that “reads the Internets” to put shit into perspective.

…. my god…   what was i thinking?  that’s FUTILE!  Just leave a comment if you feel so moved.

c