Anyway, too bad for Yelp that there isn't somebody in the gov't they could pay $300/month to make this bad lawsuit go away...
When there's more money involved, and when the business community being reviewed is more specific and defined it has proven to be very useful and successful. I.e. Angie's List.
Anonymous web reviews were useful once upon a time before the web grew up, and marketers started gaming the system en masse.
What I'd pay for is a sort of premium search tool that guarantees the authenticity of everything it serves up.
The problem is though, that every company will get some 1-star reviews, and there has to be some mechanism for them to get erased (eventually). This mechanism should be open, clear, and well known, not $300/month to the rating company. Otherwise, once a long-running, good company gets some critical mass of negative/crazy customers leaving 1-star reviews, they'd have to close or rename or something in order to get back that unfairly lost traffic.
It's a bummer because I travel a lot for work, so it was nice to be able to find local businesses.
There is, however, a special place in hell reserved for the people whose business model revolves around squeezing mom and pop businesses. It is an endless Wal Mart, stretching as far as the eye can see, inhabited by zombie greeters armed with 24-can value packs of flaming caustic Dow distinfectant spray.
I don't know why mom-and-pop businesses should get a free pass on everything. They seem to think that because running a small business is not particularly profitable, that they shouldn't have to pay taxes, they shouldn't have to provide customer service, they shouldn't have reasonable hours, and that I should worship them for providing me with such a valuable service.
I like local businesses, but it was nice to see the last recession kill some of the crappy ones off.
(The ones I frequent that have good ratings on Yelp are the ones that deserve good ratings. The people working there tend to be super-nice, and that makes people want to rate them highly. The places with low ratings deserve the low ratings.)
Or do you feel is was important to make a statement?
Still, yelp is very useful, but if you don't want to use it out of principle (for the little guys!), you can use the sites above.
I've had good experiences going to new area and asking locals where I should eat. People take a lot of pride in their neighborhoods and are more than happy to help.
