Jan 28 2008
Yelp.com really bothers me. It's not so much that it exists, it's that they make no effort to give one user the ability to seem more credible the next. Their system is so easily exploitable, it ruins the purpose of the site for everyone. Does Yelp not realize this, or simply not care? Either way, here's some free advice for the makers of Yelp:
  1. Have reviewers tag a review as positive or negative before posting. Do a word count, then weight the usefulness of the review. Try to write a useful negative or positive in less than 10 words. "Dude! Best/worst pizza ever, whoa!" is noise, not a useful review.

  2. Create a trust network. It's kinda like a social network, but not lame. Allow users to set how many degrees of separation they trust. Sure, it'll vastly decrease the content for certain users, but (1) they've chosen that so it's OK, and (2) it'll add a whole new facet of the site for users who just want to share/discover services with the people they know.

  3. Let people quietly mark posts as suspicious. Just having a general "flag this review" doesn't do anything. It's entirely too open, so it's inferred use is "tell us if this is offensive to you". On a review site, offensive is the least of your worries. Harsh language in a negative review is exactly inversely proportionate to the type of language usually found in a positive review. This is no reason to flag. C'mon, who's steering the ship? Give your users options so they learn the different flagging reasons you're looking for. Receiving a flag from a user who's suspicious of a reviewer using a fake account is way more useful than wasting your time addressing an F-bomb.

  4. "Was this review useful/funny/cool?". Oh, grow up! None of those things matter! Allowing users to review reviews without fixing the credibility issue is spiraling further out of control. Simply put: it's 100% exploitable. And "funny" or "cool"? You'd get more useful data by inviting your users into your co-lo facility and encouraging them take a dump on your servers.
In the end, the whole point of the site is ruined if it allows people to exploit the most obvious weakness of all: the fake account. Not only am I suspicious of the one shining review in a collection of tarnished ones, I know for a fact that business owners post fake reviews and/or encourage other people to do it for them. So, Yelp... in the interest of your users, the fake account issue needs to be fixed ASAP - but, I'm not giving the solution to that one away for free. Sorry, but I don't know you.
Jan 28 2008
Hi Jeff! I was thinking/posting about recommendations and reviews today too. I absolutely agree that users should be able to rate a review positive or negative, rather than simply a purchase being automatically considered praise for the product. Word counts are an interesting idea. In addition to the degrees of connection/trust network, you might be interested in some of the methods I thought of for segmenting whose reviews you're seeing. From my post: "Your friends get reliable data on recommendations for and against from a context that’s meaningful to them. If enough of their network has reviewed a product/service, they might even have the option of segregating those reviews into more narrow contexts (coworkers at business A, friends from school G, contacts in area L). [...] Friends can still use people whose recommendations they trust the most. “View all of Suzy’s reviews” (or “[category] reviews”) would be useful. Of course, anything Suzy has reviewed anonymously isn’t displayed here, unless it’s Suzy herself viewing it. The next step is being able to ask, “Based on Suzy’s reviews, would she like item X?” The SNS can use the same recommendation engine it uses for Suzy herself to give a percentage chance of approval by Suzy to whoever’s asking, probably someone who’s liked Suzy’s other reviews." If you have the time, check out my full post: http://socialstrategist.com/2008/01/27/social-networking-services-of-2010-part-i I'd love to know what you think!
Jan 28 2008
Kenshi says...
You should check out www.whrrl.com. They allow you to filter recommendations by trusted people and your own foodie friends.
May 19 2008
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Jun 18 2008
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