Yelp 2.0
Picture this: The year is 2016, you and your small family just finished ice skating for over 2 hours, and you are all exhausted from drinking hot cocoa, in need of a real meal. You pull off your oversized mit, the cold air hits your fingertips gently, and you open your phone to pull out the Yelp app. Quickly, you’re able to find a place within a mile’s walk, great sized portions, and a homely vibe that allows you and your family to relax until your lengthy drive home.
Today, if you open Yelp, you'll immediately see a one star review that says “waitress was ugly. wud not eat here again”. So unserious and so far away from what the true idea of Yelp started as. Somehow Yelp has turned to cater to business owners and their desire to help small businesses maintain this idea of a ‘local community’. This has pulled them away from the real people who matter, the patrons.
From a numbers standpoint, I expect better from Yelp. They have the ability to create something amazing with their long-standing name, and what they really need is a true rebrand. Redesign the tired logo, update the app to something less clunky, and change the mission to connection!
The reason why apps like Beli work is because they allow you to experience things and then share those experiences directly with your friends, within the app. It makes you question why you have to press 3+ buttons just to share a restaurant with your friends for a late-night dinner on Yelp. Everything online forces you to download the Yelp app, but then what? The experience is awful.
I am nearly at that age when I can begin to say “back in my day” and get away with it. At the risk of sounding seasoned – back in my day, there was a phrase “I am not eating at a restaurant with less than 3 stars on Yelp”. Nowadays, you rarely hear people use Yelp as a point of reference for trying a new restaurant. There is very little incentive to write an insightful review for a restaurant that literally knocked your socks off.
Sure, it’s cool to hear that Yelp is “AI-powered”, but that means very little to the users who are chronically online, and looking for small opportunities to disconnect. As of today (Happy Thanksgiving btw), Yelp is down 22% in their 1-year return and down 24% YTD. Every article I have seen about the once-prominent reviewing app has been down-right depressing. Why is there not a section for food activities yet? Set up a pizza making class for me and my friends to watch Sam, an 80 year old sauce connoisseur in the West Village, make us a remarkable slice!
Don't get me started on the lack of enthusiasm from leadership, it’ll ruin my thanksgiving stuffing.
Frank.
