SFist: Behold the Yelp Tee

travin

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:11:40 -0800

My favorite shirt like this was the one at Fulton Street B&G. On the front it said "Our Attitude Matches Yours" and the back "Go F*ck Yourself"

Akit

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 09:27:12 -0800

Yelp is yuck. I find some reviews that's: --Bunch of bullshit. For example, one "elite" user wrote several short paragraphs of their experience on the bus to the festival, then wrote two very brief sentences about the festival itself. And what happened? All their "friends" gave it supporting votes for helpful and cool. --Writes about places that have been long closed. One former Round Table was still on Yelp for over a year and people were writing reviews at least six months into their closure. I personally prefer epinions. They sometimes go local with reviews of restaurants, but typically focus on a nationwide scale, examples: theme parks, airlines, cruise ships, etc. At least the users can vote if the article is quality material, and the best reviewed articles gets placed on the top and also earns a small financial incentive for quality articles which can very based on how many people read your reviews (I sometimes get 5 to 30 cents per article every month).

willnick

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:18:20 -0800

yes.

aj

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:16:54 -0800

Perhaps they were protesting American Apparel instead of making pizza?

FNREEDIE

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:13:00 -0800

If I Yelped, I'd give them a 1 star rating after waiting well over an hour for a pizza. Ordered it to go and came back at the suggested time to pick it up. Was rudely told it still wasn't ready, waited another 15 min and then asked again. Still not ready. Went shopping at Bi-Rite, got stuck in a long line, returned to find it still was no where to be found. Finally got pizza, walked a whole block back to my house and had a nice cold pizza. Needless to say, I've found other places to spend my money.

hillarys_quivering_lip

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:01:56 -0800

> Yelp isn't going anywhere Perhaps true, but by this time next year there is no way we will be wasting time with a front-page blog posting detailing their corrupt ways. > Get over it We have! May we assist with directions?

cowsaysmeow

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:46:28 -0800

I'm not underestimating the number of fools so much as I am overestimating the ability of a fool to recognize absurdity when it's sitting there in front of their face. I guess I just haven't seen any iota of evidence as to what you're implying. I've seen a lot of talk about it, but not actual proof. I'm not defending their sales practices (in fact, I'm quite willing to believe that some of their salespeople have been making shit up in order to meet their goals, and this is where most of the more serious accusations are coming in), but from what I can tell, I don't see what you say is happening actually happening. Anyway, I'm no Yelp cheerleader and I think there's definitely a place for professional reviewers. All I know is that I've made a few discoveries because of Yelp that I would not have through most other sources. On a related note, I think the t-shirt idea is kick-ass.

willnick

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:39:20 -0800

Fail. They have strong 4-star rating, and they feel the need to make t-shirts? It makes them look like more of a sensitive bitch ass than the sensitive bitch asses complaining on yelp. Yelp isn't going anywhere, and most people are smart enough to ignore the whiners. Get over it.

masterdave

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:16:06 -0800

I think you underestimate the number of fools out there. It still doesn't mean Yelp has any integrity, or that user-reviewing works at all except to let a small amount of people feel very important and Yelp gets to laugh all the way to the bank.

zstone

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:16:23 -0800

Self-deprecating, clever, and so much better for business than a lawsuit.

cowsaysmeow

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:35:44 -0800

If you'd actually read the reviews that SFist linked, you'd notice that they were the type of reviews that only a fool would take seriously (1 star because it was cold and they chose to sit outside? WTF?). Yelp is by no means perfect, but it's not difficult to sift through the riff-raff either. Also, just FYI, out of the 616 reviews only 15 have one star, and on the first page only one is a bad review (2 stars, written 2 days ago). Note that the place is not a sponsor.

periqueblend

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:27:32 -0800

Agreed its a very clever takedown of Yelp as a whole. Not just the semi-literate ramblings of the disaffected but the entire idea of the value of user-generated reviews. And they do it without seeming holier than thou which is crucial. ps brock, should that maybe be amended to: via eater, via 7x7?

stanthecaddy

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:23:28 -0800

brilliant.

Deborah

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:15:33 -0800

I would recommend that the "gals" at Two Gals With a Truck never do this. http://www.yelp.com/biz/two-gals-with-a-truck-san-francisco

Angrybat

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:11:28 -0800

I think it's funny that of the three one-star reviews you linked, only one is because of the food. One gave up after waiting an hour and left without even eating. Dude, I know waiting sucks, but it's not really the restaurant's fault. I've never eaten there because I can't stand waiting for anything.

aj

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:55:30 -0800

Very amusing. A lot of attitude, though, for recessionary times.

hillarys_quivering_lip

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:47:27 -0800

Anyone taking Yelp seriously anymore is a sucker. It's a scam.

Belgand

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:35:20 -0800

It might be hard to believe, but sometimes people dislike things. Yeah there are a lot of idiots on Yelp, but that's just because there are a ton of idiots in society. It seems like a lot of places these days can't possibly understand how people might not like them. Maybe instead of bitching about bad reviews they should try to pay attention to them and if they're not just the ravings of lunatics (which I've certainly seen... along with plenty of outright falsehoods) improve on the problem areas.

masterdave

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:20:10 -0800

who would give them one-star reviews? Easy! People being paid by Yelp to give negative reviews in order to coerce (extort, etc) a business into throwing money Yelp's way in order to bury the negative reviews. Yelp's got no integrity to me anymore.

manys

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:11:36 -0800

This is awesome! Someone at Delfina is very smart.