Yelp is a directory listing website of all of the local businesses in your particular area. It is similar to the Yellow Pages in that respect. Yelp also adds a social aspect by allowing “yelpers” to review different businesses the same way that Amazon.com allows users to rate products.

Yelp makes finding good restaurants much easier. It’s like word of mouth on the web. You can easily see the price, parking, hours and much more.

Yelp’s social integration goes far beyond what most sites with feedback capabilities allow. Yelp allows members to post pictures of themselves, add other users as friends, allow friends to contact one another, and find other Yelpers based on similar likes/dislikes.

Yelpers themselves are also rated by their peers. You can comment on whether you thought the review was useful, cool, funny etc.

Yelpers are not all equal either. Yelpers who Yelp more often and have positive feedback on their reviews have more credibility on Yelp. Yelpers may even achieve elite status and become members of the Elite Squad.

What is great about Yelp is the quantity and quality of the information. Users can even submit pictures of the business and many even post pictures of the food they ordered!

There is plenty of interaction between customers and business owners. If a customer writes a bad review about a company, the business also has the ability to respond back. This is the reason that as a business owner, it is important to keep track of what people say about your business. You can do this by claiming a business as your own. This requires verification by Yelp. Many businesses are not even aware that someone has created a Yelp listing for them and have no idea what others are saying about them.

Yelp knows when a business is attempting to game the system by writing fake reviews. These users are quickly blacklisted.

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