Dining Out: The Yelpranos

One of the things I wanted to start doing through my blog, in addition to writing about music stuff that I think people expect will be here, is obviously making some more personal posts and outlining my activities beyond playing two songs at the same time at the same speed. As evidenced by my earlier post on Kozmo Gastro Pub, I want to start to use this space to share some of my stories of eating out in and around Atlanta. I almost never cook at home, so I consider myself pretty well versed in the local restaurant scene. I have occasionally made posts to Yelp, and it’s typically been a good experience; I’ve had restaurants recognize me on a return visit and compliment my comments, or even better ask how to improve. That is why I made the comments to begin with, spotlight those who are doing it right and help those who need a push in the right direction.

My original intent was to begin to mirror content posted here to my already established Yelp profile however after reading this article today, outlining Yelp’s practice of essentially extorting money from profiled businesses to ensure favorable results on their site, I think I’ll save myself the trouble of posting the information twice and keep things here. I cannot say I’m terrible surprised, we’ve seen similar things happening, the FTC does mandate a disclosure policy for review blogs, however it’s disappointing to see a leading player taking explicit action to compromise the integrity of what is intended to be a somewhat objective user-submitted democratic review site.