That "intimate," "romantic" cafe looked like the perfect place to take a first date until you Googled it and discovered it was "way too jammed with tables" and "serves everything congealed."
As the popularity of San Francisco-based review site Yelp grows, businesses are starting to criticize its amateur reviewers--because they're cutting into profits.
While the Yelp founders defend the site as giving power to the masses who comment on coffeehouses and rate restaurants, owners of the businesses under review claim an untoward relationship between the tone of reviews and the amount of advertising they've purchased on the site. One shop owner told The New York Times, "Yelp does not respect us as business owners," since users submit rankings without consequences.
We've always regarded Yelp as Citysearch minus the pop-ups, but occasionally it gives us bright ideas. How much stock do you put in "crowdsourced" review sites like Yelp?
Related Stories:
· 'The Coffee Was Lousy. The Wait Was Long.' [NYT]
· Websites coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: Yelp Store]]]>