“The next wave is that smaller and smaller businesses are starting to benefit from this as well,” said Harvard economist Michael Luca, who has written several studies about Yelp.
“Within hotels we’re also starting to see this shift towards (private rentals like) Airbnb and (room) sharing, which is enabled by the fact that you can quickly build a reputation.”
The key is to have enough reviews so people can trust they are accurate.
TripAdvisor – which has more than 100 million reviews of 2.5 million hotels, restaurants and attractions in 30 countries – encourages users to keep posting by sending them e-mails announcing how many people have read their review.
Those e-mails – along with people’s desire to have their voices heard and feel like they’re helping other travellers – add up to about 16 new reviews every minute, said Stephanie Boyle, vice president of global products for TripAdvisor.
The sheer volume helps stop businesses from skewing ratings with fake reviews.
TripAdvisor also employs complex algorithms – and a content integrity team staffed with people who have worked in military intelligence and credit card fraud detection – to weed out fake reviews.
“Nothing is more important to us than content integrity,” Boyle said. “If you don’t trust our content you’re not going to come back and use us as a tool.”
Yelp – which aims to go beyond mere reviews and be an interactive social media site – is even more aggressive at culling questionable content and also filters out reviews that aren’t “helpful.”
It rewards good writers who engage with other reviews by awarding them ‘elite’ status and lets users send compliments to each other and rate reviews as useful, cool, and funny.
While some may think review sites are filled with people who want to gripe, it seems the majority of reviews are positive by people eager to share good experiences and send a shout-out to owners.
“They’re talking about the amazing eco-friendly dry cleaner that gets the mustard stain off their shirt, or the pet groomer that was able to calm their poodle,” said Miriam Warren, vice president of new markets for Yelp.
