Valleywag
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loser-generated content
New York Times eyes Yelp warily
Celebrity chef Thomas Keller will not deign to acknowledge the existence of Yelp. But the New York Times has. While individual writeups on the user-written restaurant-reviews site may be goofy, biased, or contrafactual, on the whole they give potential diners a good idea of what to expect. And they are vastly more prolific than the pros: Megan Cress, a Yelper, has written 300 restaurant reviews in three years. Times critics take twice as long. We wonder: Did the editors think the beancounters who are eyeing the Times's dwindling cash balance wouldn't read this article? (Illustration by John Hersey/New York Times) -
commentards
Yelp protection racket alleged by anonymous cowards
A report from The Register claims that five business owners have complained to them that Yelp salespeople offered to "push bad reviews to the bottom" in exchange for an ad buy on the site. The story, based partly on several unnamed sources, leaves me skeptical. None of the sources claimed Yelp actually did move negative reviews out of sight after they'd bought a sponsored link. That backs CEO Jeremy Stoppelman's claim that they were probably duped by a "rogue salesman." But the article makes it easy to understand why people would pay up: The business owners who talked to The Reg in exchange for anonymity come across as more afraid of retaliation from Yelp commenters than from Yelp lawyers. -
acquisitions
Marissa Mayer, Google's "high priestess of simplicity," tells Yelp about her $300 highlights
The email-newsletter headline had my business-minded editor all hot and bothered: "Yelp Goes to Google!" But no, this wasn't an oh-so-logical tuck-in acquisition of the local reviews site by the search giant. Instead, it was a sitdown with Marissa Mayer. In the interview, Mayer reveals her usual spreadsheet array of girly affectations: cupcakes! Manolos! highlights! I'm miffed about the highlights, because we have the same stylist, and as Mayer gushes like the best ladymag ingenue, "I hesitate to even say anything because she's so good and I'd hate for it to be harder for me to get an appointment." Still, cute to see her getting cozy with the review website, since if Google did take the plunge and acquire Yelp, it'd be Mayer, VP of Stuff People Actually Use, who'd make the call. -
sex trade
No priority shipping for escorts, not yet, anyway
If TheEroticReview.com is "Amazon.com for prostitutes" (as dubbed by Matt Richtel in the New York Times), do customers get "free delivery for orders over $100", asks Salon.com's Broadsheet. We agree with Salon's assessment — TER is really more like Yelp — unless there's some exciting new feature to Amazon Prime that the Times was briefed on under embargo. -
yelp
New details on Yelp's New York expansion
Social reviews site Yelp isn't nearly as popular in New York as it is in San Francisco and management has been planning to do something about it. "They're gonna pump up efforts to conquer NYC, renting an office in Gramercy area and assign [an] East Coast community leader," a source with new details tells us. Yelp already has an ad sales office in New York's West Village, but our source says those people will move to the larger office further uptown by September as well. Yelp is a cousin to widgetmaker Slide, with Slide founder Max Levchin on Yelp's board. With Slide's own upcoming move to New York and Yelp's city expansion, we'd expect to see a lot more Levchin around the Alley, except, well, we hear he never leaves the office. (And if he did, we'd prefer he say hello to his bride to be first.) -
san francisco
Gavin Newsom complains about his Yelp rating
Yelp founder Jeremy Stoppelman and Nish Nadaraja, marketing director of the local listing site, sat down with San Francisco's preternaturally hunky god-mayor Gavin Newsom. Newsom agreed to the meeting in order to convince Yelpers he's "more hip than the 3.5 stars makes me appear." Before they lobbed him softball questions in earnest, he got to pitch his environmentalist credentials, taking credit for a greener taxi fleet — though his executive order commanding municipal agencies to convert to greener vehicles has stalled, and it was the Board of Supervisors who passed the taxi legislation. All most voters seem to care about is The Hair:The days where I had a little dollop of gel are gone. I'm using quarter of a bottle at a time and I'm not proud of it. And I know that I need help!
(Photo by AP/Eric Risberg) -
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real estate
RedEnvelope failure frees up SoMa space
The likely closure of troubled online retailer RedEnvelope has a benefit for space-hungry startups near its SoMa headquarters at 149 New Montgomery. Yelp and Slide are among the rapidly expanding companies in the neighborhood. I asked Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman if he was going to swoop in on the space. "I wish 'cause it looks like a cool building, but we recently added space at 706 Mission so I think we're locked in there for a while," he told me. No word from Slide CEO Max Levchin. RedEnvelope signed a five-year lease in July 2004, with a base rent of $51,332 a month for 28,000 square feet. (Photo by Google Street View) -
chinh nguyen
"Piggy" lover gives Valleywag a three-star Yelp review
It turns out that Chinh Nguyen, the foul-mouthed, AmEx-flashing, self-described "balla" girlfriend of Nvidia vice president Neil Trevett, isn't just an indiscreet blogger; she's also an elite Yelptard. Yelp users like to celebrate their hundredth-review milestones, and for Nguyen's 300th, she chose to write up Valleywag. We are honored beyond words; before this, we were utterly Yelpless. Chinh, we at Valleywag really like your style. If the job interview you mentioned in our phone call doesn't work out, would you consider blogging? We have an opening for a reporter, and I think you'd fit right in here. Nguyen's Yelp review of Valleywag, "a National Enquirer for geeks": More » -
conflicts of interest
"San Francisco" trashes Yelp -- and its own ethics
A recent piece on Yelp written for San Francisco magazine by one Karen Solomon roughs up the local-reviews website, but Solomon's critiques are mostly on target: The site's audience is insular and dominated by Bay Area residents; it has struggled to expand to other cities and define a business model. Just one small problem: San Francisco magazine reviews local businesses. In between throwing lavish parties, Yelp runs a website which lets its users do the same. So the two compete, at least in theory. More » -
party report
Party correspondent confronts ghosts of Yelp parties past
Yelp, the local-reviews site, is as infamous in San Francisco as it is nonfamous anywhere else in the country. Its parties, always hedonistic rampages of drunken conversations, burlesque troops, and makeout sessions in the photobooth, helped establish its local reputation and cement the loyalty of hardcore users. (Even the founders get in on the action!) Last night, Yelp held its holiday party at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Upon entering, I was greeted by a mass of San Francisco Yelptards, each louder than the next, all laughing, cajoling, flirting, and hugging each other. Self-congratulations were clearly in order.
More »
5:00 PM on Thu Dec 6 2007
By Megan McCarthy
2,481 views, 7 commentsLatest by Fake Dave McClure: Valleywag, the local gossip rag, is as infamous in San Francisco as it is nonfamous anywhere else in the country. more »
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San Francisco, 7:39 AM
Mon Dec 1
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