Apple Integrating Yelp Check-Ins Directly into iOS 6 Maps

With millions of new users I'm assuming Yelp is about to become a lot more useful with more balanced reviews.

Probably not.

The biggest problem with Yelp is that they operate as an extortion racket. They will not remove bad reviews unless the business owner pays a fee to Yelp. That's how Yelp makes money.

In an "ideal" world, Yelp-like reviews would be normalized with the top ten percent and top ten percent of scores removed. This would largely eliminate a lot of fraudulent reviews (business owners getting friends to provide glowing scores, or competitors bashing their peers). A few truthful third-party reviews would be eliminated as well, but those contributors, in seeing their reviews vanish, would be discouraged from submitted additional reviews.

The other big problem is the issue of qualified reviews. Would you trust more for a review of the local sushi bars and burger joints? The restaurant critic at the local newspaper or your next door neighbors? Let's say the newspaper critic grew up in the Midwest as the son of a butcher. Let's say the neighbor to your left is a lady from Venezuela. And the neighbor on your right is a chef from Austin, TX. More reviews isn't necessarily helpful but Yelp's business needs traffic, and does much of it by getting people to interact and contribute reviews.

Yelp is more useful if you are out of town and too lazy to do research from qualified local reviewers. But Yelp users must realize that they basically asking some random person on the street. Popularity does not make a place good; McDonald's is a great example of this. Even a "quality" regional chain like In-n-Out Burgers is subject to this. For every In-n-Out location, there's likely a mom-and-pop burger joint within a couple of miles that blows doors on that In-n-Out store.

When you use Yelp, you are asking the Great Unwashed for their opinion.

Apple should straighten yelp out as a company before investing so much in them. They try to extort advertising money from local businesses and if you don't pay them they filter all the positive reviews from your yelp listing.

Yelp is a HORRIBLE INFORMATION SOURCE for Hotels. Nobody uses the information to find hotels. (Our hotel is a MAJOR BRAND in a MID-MAJOR MARKET and the Yelp site gets about 1-3 hits per week.)

WHAT'S WORSE is that Yelp is just a "dumping ground" for people looking to slam a business with a bad review. There is no response ability or problem-resolution process for businesses that want to ACTUALLY SERVE their customers.

IT'S AWFUL!

With millions of new users I'm assuming Yelp is about to become a lot more useful with more balanced reviews.

For a company that likes to control the user experience and likes to the deliver the entire package, Apple's recent move to integrate with other companies seems odd.

I guess they can't compete with Google in this area without help.

Yelp is a HORRIBLE INFORMATION SOURCE for Hotels. Nobody uses the information to find hotels. (Our hotel is a MAJOR BRAND in a MID-MAJOR MARKET and the Yelp site gets about 1-3 hits per week.)

WHAT'S WORSE is that Yelp is just a "dumping ground" for people looking to slam a business with a bad review. There is no response ability or problem-resolution process for businesses that want to ACTUALLY SERVE their customers.

IT'S AWFUL!

Another issue with Yelp, TomTom, and all those third parties is that they have a spotty track record (or often no presence at all) outside of the US.

Even though I'm still going to likely choose Google Maps, competition is good. I use Yelp all the time and this is definitely a convenient feature

Well Google will probably issue a standalone map app but it won't be integrated in the OS like Apple's maps will or Google is now. When you click on a link or address it will by default bring up Apple's Map, not Googles. That is the difference between an app that you will have to copy and paste (a hassle) an address to (Google Maps) and an iOS embedded API like Apples Maps which will link to all programs through the iOS level API.

There isn't a default system wide choice.

Yelp is a HORRIBLE INFORMATION SOURCE for Hotels. Nobody uses the information to find hotels. (Our hotel is a MAJOR BRAND in a MID-MAJOR MARKET and the Yelp site gets about 1-3 hits per week.)

WHAT'S WORSE is that Yelp is just a "dumping ground" for people looking to slam a business with a bad review. There is no response ability or problem-resolution process for businesses that want to ACTUALLY SERVE their customers.

IT'S AWFUL!

Huh? I only visit Yelp when I'm looking for something, but even I know they offer a bunch of business services, including response abilities: http://biz.yelp.com/support

I'm guessing between being wrong and using all caps you have a particular bone to pick?

When you use Yelp, you are asking the Great Unwashed for their opinion.

Considering the "expert" reviews in newspapers or blog sites in many areas involve so many behind the scenes hand shakes, I'd rather trust the wisdom of the crowds. I almost never read a professional review that says this product is bad and not worth its price. They always find something good to balance the bad or they don't review a product to avoid damaging their relationships with the companies they depend on for free samples or trips.

I find Yelp reviews to match opinions from my friends fairly closely. For those who say Yelp is useless for hotels, well, I cannot disagree, I use TripAdvisor for that.

All the cool kids use Foursquare, Apple...:confused:

Probably not.

The biggest problem with Yelp is that they operate as an extortion racket. They will not remove bad reviews unless the business owner pays a fee to Yelp. That's how Yelp makes money.

In an "ideal" world, Yelp-like reviews would be normalized with the top ten percent and top ten percent of scores removed. This would largely eliminate a lot of fraudulent reviews (business owners getting friends to provide glowing scores, or competitors bashing their peers). A few truthful third-party reviews would be eliminated as well, but those contributors, in seeing their reviews vanish, would be discouraged from submitted additional reviews.

The other big problem is the issue of qualified reviews. Would you trust more for a review of the local sushi bars and burger joints? The restaurant critic at the local newspaper or your next door neighbors? Let's say the newspaper critic grew up in the Midwest as the son of a butcher. Let's say the neighbor to your left is a lady from Venezuela. And the neighbor on your right is a chef from Austin, TX. More reviews isn't necessarily helpful but Yelp's business needs traffic, and does much of it by getting people to interact and contribute reviews.

Yelp is more useful if you are out of town and too lazy to do research from qualified local reviewers. But Yelp users must realize that they basically asking some random person on the street. Popularity does not make a place good; McDonald's is a great example of this. Even a "quality" regional chain like In-n-Out Burgers is subject to this. For every In-n-Out location, there's likely a mom-and-pop burger joint within a couple of miles that blows doors on that In-n-Out store.

When you use Yelp, you are asking the Great Unwashed for their opinion.

I agree with "reader beware". I do not subscribe to the view that user reviews have no value. Many of the so called professional reviewers are no more qualified than my neighbor. They are professional writers and their skill is used to earn a living.