Apple Integrating Yelp Check-Ins Directly into iOS 6 Maps

[steve123]

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.

 

[kiljoy616]

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

That is fine but no turn by turn so what is the advantage than to just be stubborn to change.

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apple is slowly turning iOS into a advertisement platform without the customer even really noticing it. sneaky but pretty smart from their perspective i guess

You hit the point, in the end everything is about advertising reason I don't use a lot of apps, I rather pay a few dollars than have one add pop up. No pandora for me that is for sure.

 

[ssspinball]

I know lots of people using Foursquare multiple times per day, but just about no one using Yelp check-ins.

 

[a0me]

Tom Tom's headquarters is in Amsterdam.

You got a point. However I'm more concerned about services like Yelp, and also TomTom's support in Asia.
It took Google years in Japan to catch up to the range of information provided by local companies (Google Places/Google+ Local is still behind when compared to Japan-centric services Tabelog or Yahoo! Japan Gourmet) and I fear that Apple moving away from Google services will be like going back to square one...

 

[Fueled]

Yelp integration in iOS 6

Apple did Yelp a big favor with the integration. Although it is true that Facebook and Foursquare might feel the heat with the new check-in features—

http://fueled.com/blog/apple-and-yelp-the-pairing-of-the-century/