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They could have purchased TomTom, for example and had everything up and running immediately.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. From Apple's mapping attribution page:

© 2006-2012 TomTom
Business listings data © Acxiom, 2012.
Map data © AND.
Property parcel data for USA. © CoreLogic Inc., 2012.
Satellite imagery data © DigitalGlobe, 2012.
Map and postal data © DMTI, 2012. This software contains Postal Code OM Data copied by Apple under a sub-license from DMTI Spatial Inc., a party directly licensed by Canada Post Corporation. The Canada Post Corporation file from which this data was copied is dated 2012.
Business listings data © Factual 2012.
Map data © Getchee, 2012.
© INCREMENT P CORP., 2012, http://www.incrementp.co.jp/gc01info/e/legal01.html.
Map data © Intermap, 2012.
Map data © LeadDog, 2012.
Business listings data © Localeze, 2012.
Mapping data for Australia and New Zealand. © MapData Services Pty Ltd., 2012, PSMA http://www.nowwhere.com.au/lic/NowWhereLic.htm.
Map data © MDA Information Systems, Inc., 2012.
Neighborhood data © Urban Mapping, 2012.
Map data © 2012 Waze.
âoeReviews from Yelpâ Yelp, 2012.
(CanVec)
© Department of Natural Resources Canada. All rights reserved.
http://www.geogratis.gc.ca/geogratis/en/index.html
(CGIAR-CSI SRTM)
CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information, http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/
Flickr Shapefiles Public Dataset, Version 1.0, http://www.flickr.com/
(GeoNames)
GeoNames and contributors, http://www.geonames.org.
(GlobCover)
© ESA 2010 and UCLouvain, http://www.esa.int/esaEO/index.html

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, http://www.nasa.gov

Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2012. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2012. http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/

(OSDM)
© Commonwealth of Australia, 2012. This data has been used with the permission of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has not evaluated the data as altered and incorporated within this software, and therefore gives no warranty regarding its accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability for any particular purpose. http://spatial.gov.au

(OSM)
OpenStreetMap contributors, http://www.openstreetmap.org/
(StatCan)
Statistics Canada, http://www.statcan.gc.ca
(TIGER/Line® fi

Kickstarter actually started out as a way to fund arts projects. Like somebody wanting to create a sculpture, do a fancy mural, put on a play, even make a low-budget movie. These are all things that will probably never make back their costs and have traditionally depended on the generosity of donors. These have traditionally been people with deep pockets — businesses looking to generate goodwill, rich people who've gone philanthropist — but with the whole online crowd-whatever phenomenon, there's no reason ordinary people can't do this too.

Like you, I'm bothered by the fact that Kickstarter is now dominated by startups who use it to get seed capital. There's something just plain messed up about a for-profit business that might well make its founders rich starting out by passing the hat. Still, I'm forced to admit that some intriguing projects (Pebble, Ouya, and even the much-maligned Orbit) might never have gone anywhere without the generosity of "backers". I guess there's nothing really wrong with it, as long as people understand that the money they're offering is a gift, not a purchase or investment.

But to answer your question: this is one of those weird online enthusiasms, like that Korean guy with the weird dance moves. My favorite example is this Halaal restaurant I used to live near which for no obvious reason has hundreds of 5-star reviews on Yelp. Now this is a decent restaurant, the food is OK, and the staff is very hospitable to everybody who comes in. But they seem very confused by all the non-Muslims trooping through the door. Why pay extra to eat Halaal if your religious beliefs don't require it?

Yelp is full of stuff like this, and let's not forget the bus monitor whose bullying incident earned her almost $700K. Very silly, but not that big a deal, except maybe for the potential fraud.

Not surprise, indeed kind of surprised it's 1: not already the case,

It is already the case. It's just a longer walk from, say, Bandley 3, although you can walk to Caffe Macs from Bandley 3.

2: it would raise any interest external to the enterprise concerned,

It's Apple - if somebody replaces a toilet tank in IL1, somebody will think it's one of the most significant world events of the day.

iRestaurant

A nearby (not so good) chinese restaurant just down the street with that name in cupertino closed last year.

Who knows, maybe they got a buyout deal that they couldn't refuse ;^)

Here is a video I took from Hot Club in Providence RI right next to the hurricane barriers. No danger, people standing around chiling (the bar we were at remained open and we were able to get nice rums and beers and enjoy the drizzle and light breeze), and this clearly irritated the CNN anchor for the threat to the narrative she was pushing

>> "A fish beat the crap out of a clam by hitting it against a rock? I'm not quite sure this qualifies as "tool" use. Now, grabbing the rock, and beating clam with it, or using it to pry open the clam... that would sound more "tool-like.""

From: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp?Word=tool [thefreedictionary.com]

"4. Something used in the performance of an operation; an instrument: ..."
or
"4. (Engineering / Tools) anything used as a means of performing an operation or achieving an end ..."

Show me any law or Engineering definition, standard, etc... that states or in any way requires the "Tool" to be held, or otherwise used against the material.

Seems to me it is no different than the Oyster shuckers at the Union Oyster House in Boston that have a cobblestone in the sink. They put the knife in the hinge of the oyster, then hold both vertically, and bring both down rapping the handle of the knife onto the cobblestone thereby forcing the knife into the oyster. Both the cobblestone and the knife are both "Tools", IMHO.

http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/Ruq91rmQNweZ78TzKylQMg?select=lOXM-kwLvrWp6zxw3KEKJg [yelp.com]

http://www.yelp.com/biz/perrys-chicago

Barbara Streisand personally messaged me this link: http://www.yelp.com/biz/ken-cirka-dmd-philadelphia-2
It's the Yelp review of some philadelphia doctor named Ken Cirka... people should check it out

How about compelling evidence that it *is* being astroturfed? Businesses are getting so brazen at this that they just come right out and say it in written form that they'll give something in return for positive reviews...

newsletter asking to shill

Yelp review calling out owner with a *response* from the owner

No, he means Old MacDonald's Farmers Market - http://www.yelp.com/biz/old-macdonalds-farmers-market-san-jose.

Texas won't let you buy or sell vibrator

Not true - http://www.yelp.com/biz/adult-video-megaplexxx-san-antonio

This one probably won't be true. Most wires just can't give out enough power. Recharging a car at speeds at which a gas car is charged takes around 5 megawatts. That means that 10 of my local costco gas stations = 1 powerplant.

It's not quite that bad. 1 megawatt is more like it. The Tesla Roadster battery has a capacity of 53kWh. Their "fast charge" is 3 hours, and requires 220V 80A, or 17.6 KW. To charge 60x faster, in 3 minutes, would require about 1 MW. (4KV at 250A, perhaps?)

It's been suggested that stations on weaker parts of the power grid might have local batteries, to level out their load. They could still charge a car in 3 minutes, but maybe only 5-10 cars per hour. Then they only need 100KW coming in.

Batteries that can take charge rates like that don't exist yet. There are claims from the "nanotechnology" crowd that they will be available Real Soon Now. We'll see.

15 minute charge, though, is feasible now. That can be addressed with marketing; the combo gas station/Burger King/Starbucks/grocery store might work. (Or not.)

Consider a service plaza on a major Interstate highway in an isolated area. A good example would be I-15 from LA to Vegas. Assume a range of 200 miles, like a Tesla roadster. Every 20 miles, there's a service plaza. Assume 10% of cars come in for a recharge at each service plaza. An expressway lane has a capacity of 2000 cars per hour, so an 8-lane freeway has 16,000 cars per hour at max. If 10% of those need a Tesla-sized recharge, that's about 50KWh per car, or 1600*50 KWH/hr, or 8 megawatts per service plaza per direction, or 16MW per service plaza, or 80MW for 100 miles of road. That's big, but not unreachable.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-big-duck-riverhead

Then you must know about the shops on Hennepin, Lyndale, Nicolet Mall, Lake St, and Lagoon. You don't know about all the shops on these streets? Or on Excelsior in St Louis Park? Well perhaps driving around blind you miss them, me I ride my bike in the area, it the area I live in too. Heck, you don't know Muddy Waters? Or Penn Cycle? Loon Grocery? Those are just the ones my bad memory can come up with right now. Oh and the Wedge, of which I am a member.

You go downtown and you hardly can find any independent places, it's chains everywhere, and lest we not forget how awful the suburbs are!

I don't go downtown much but when I do more than likely I'm going to Natcam, National Camera Exchange. With 6 stores in the Twin Cities it's huge. NOT!!!

I really don't know anything about your business statistics...maybe they're a sign that Europe is following in our footsteps, which is sad, but what I'm talking about is only what I see when I walk down the street right now.

They're not my statistics they're the European Commission's or someone else's. As for walking I don't walk much, I ride my bike more.

Instead you've got an offie on every corner, with chippy or a kebab shop next to it, bakeries, grocers, butchers, you name it... We just don't get that here. Hardly saying it's perfect, but it's one of the biggest motivators for me to want leave this awful city and move over there!

While we don't have as many shops such as bakeries here as Germany had when I was there we do have them. Actually that is something I loved about it there. There are 2 big motivators for to leave, well three, here. One, it's too far away from either the Atlantic or Pacific. Two, the growing season is too short, at least without a greenhouse. And the third reason is I had to leave close friends when I moved up here. Normally I don't have trouble meeting new people but here I have. One person I did meet, born and raised in MN, told me that instead of the motto saying "Minnesota Nice" it should be "Minnesota Ice". Maybe it's just where I've been but I've had bad luck meeting people here, which is why I now spend hours online daily and don't get out much any more.

Falcon

Good point, but considering that my review got two acknowledgments and an equally long and damning review is one of the first listed, I don't think they're filtering (this restaurant).

Link: read

Hi. I'm an engineer at Yelp. I know for a fact that salespeople cannot influence reviews in any way. They have no access to the internal Yelp administration pages; they use a separate Salesforce site for doing their work. In fact, they are not even allowed to post reviews to the site.

Obviously I did not hear the conversation you had with the Yelp salesperson, but I would be VERY surprised if they suggested they could influence your reviews. Every new Yelp advertiser gets a call within days of signing up for advertising. As part of this call the advertiser's account manager goes over the fact that advertising does not influences reviews in any way. If a salesperson was suggesting that they could influence reviews, the account manager would find out during this call and that salesperson would be fired. See this blog post for more information.

As to your other points:
1) The entire purpose of the review filter is to make untrusted reviews hold less weight
2) You can respond both privately and publicly to reviews of your business,
3) I think that we can make a useful site and use advertising revenue to pay for our meals. At least Google has managed this feat, so it is not impossible.

We try really hard at Yelp to make a useful/funny/cool site that balances the needs of both business owners and consumers. We definitely don't always make everyone happy, but we are always listening to feedback and trying to make things better.

Hi. I'm an engineer at Yelp. I know for a fact that salespeople cannot influence reviews in any way. They have no access to the internal Yelp administration pages; they use a separate Salesforce site for doing their work. In fact, they are not even allowed to post reviews to the site.

Obviously I did not hear the conversation you had with the Yelp salesperson, but I would be VERY surprised if they suggested they could influence your reviews. Every new Yelp advertiser gets a call within days of signing up for advertising. As part of this call the advertiser's account manager goes over the fact that advertising does not influences reviews in any way. If a salesperson was suggesting that they could influence reviews, the account manager would find out during this call and that salesperson would be fired. See this blog post for more information.

As to your other points:
1) The entire purpose of the review filter is to make untrusted reviews hold less weight
2) You can respond both privately and publicly to reviews of your business,
3) I think that we can make a useful site and use advertising revenue to pay for our meals. At least Google has managed this feat, so it is not impossible.

We try really hard at Yelp to make a useful/funny/cool site that balances the needs of both business owners and consumers. We definitely don't always make everyone happy, but we are always listening to feedback and trying to make things better.

Hi. I'm an engineer at Yelp. I know for a fact that salespeople cannot influence reviews in any way. They have no access to the internal Yelp administration pages; they use a separate Salesforce site for doing their work. In fact, they are not even allowed to post reviews to the site.

Obviously I did not hear the conversation you had with the Yelp salesperson, but I would be VERY surprised if they suggested they could influence your reviews. Every new Yelp advertiser gets a call within days of signing up for advertising. As part of this call the advertiser's account manager goes over the fact that advertising does not influences reviews in any way. If a salesperson was suggesting that they could influence reviews, the account manager would find out during this call and that salesperson would be fired. See this blog post for more information.

As to your other points:
1) The entire purpose of the review filter is to make untrusted reviews hold less weight
2) You can respond both privately and publicly to reviews of your business,
3) I think that we can make a useful site and use advertising revenue to pay for our meals. At least Google has managed this feat, so it is not impossible.

We try really hard at Yelp to make a useful/funny/cool site that balances the needs of both business owners and consumers. We definitely don't always make everyone happy, but we are always listening to feedback and trying to make things better.

Well not D&D but you're welcome to lurk at our Google Wave Shadowrun game.

If you're actually looking for someone to game with (and there are a whole lot of us out here), check out

http://www.penandpapergames.com/

Farcaster has an excellent gamer registry. Assuming you're not in an area with 5 people in it, there's a good chance there are a few folks local to you.

And of course, check out the local game shops. Here in the Denver area there are 11 that I'm aware of.

http://www.yelp.com/list/denver-metro-gaming-stores-westminster

And of course, at least in the Denver area, our meetup group is up around 300 members and there are 5 gaming specific meetups for Denver (ours; Shadowrun, 2 D&D, a Cthulhu, and a Boardgame one).

http://shadowrun.meetup.com/79

Seriously. You just need to do a little hunting :)

[John]

Go to Yelp. Look at what it is.

Go to Google, Enter Google Maps. Type in "Restaurants in "

Notice the Ratings and reviews all along the left bar.

Tell me, what does Yelp Offer that Google does not have already coded. (Keep in mind that Google has tons of services already built, as you can see here.

Yelp is great for this too:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/muvico-rosemont-18-rosemont#hrid:4wqtTSnvXPwoIYPAZv_qhg/query:muvico

I've actually been there, as I live in Chicago. It's overpriced.

Did you also...

Report the Motel 6 to...
...your state's Attorney General?
...the Better Business Bureau?

Write scathing reviews on sites like Yelp?

• Bristol
• Chesapeake
• Fredericksburg
• Harrisonburg
• Newport News
• Norfolk
• Williamsburg
• Wytheville

Did you also...

Report the Motel 6 to...
...your state's Attorney General?
...the Better Business Bureau?

Write scathing reviews on sites like Yelp?

• Bristol
• Chesapeake
• Fredericksburg
• Harrisonburg
• Newport News
• Norfolk
• Williamsburg
• Wytheville

Did you also...

Report the Motel 6 to...
...your state's Attorney General?
...the Better Business Bureau?

Write scathing reviews on sites like Yelp?

• Bristol
• Chesapeake
• Fredericksburg
• Harrisonburg
• Newport News
• Norfolk
• Williamsburg
• Wytheville

Did you also...

Report the Motel 6 to...
...your state's Attorney General?
...the Better Business Bureau?

Write scathing reviews on sites like Yelp?

• Bristol
• Chesapeake
• Fredericksburg
• Harrisonburg
• Newport News
• Norfolk
• Williamsburg
• Wytheville

Did you also...

Report the Motel 6 to...
...your state's Attorney General?
...the Better Business Bureau?

Write scathing reviews on sites like Yelp?

• Bristol
• Chesapeake
• Fredericksburg
• Harrisonburg
• Newport News
• Norfolk
• Williamsburg
• Wytheville

Did you also...

Report the Motel 6 to...
...your state's Attorney General?
...the Better Business Bureau?

Write scathing reviews on sites like Yelp?

• Bristol
• Chesapeake
• Fredericksburg
• Harrisonburg
• Newport News
• Norfolk
• Williamsburg
• Wytheville

Did you also...

Report the Motel 6 to...
...your state's Attorney General?
...the Better Business Bureau?

Write scathing reviews on sites like Yelp?

• Bristol
• Chesapeake
• Fredericksburg
• Harrisonburg
• Newport News
• Norfolk
• Williamsburg
• Wytheville

Did you also...

Report the Motel 6 to...
...your state's Attorney General?
...the Better Business Bureau?

Write scathing reviews on sites like Yelp?

• Bristol
• Chesapeake
• Fredericksburg
• Harrisonburg
• Newport News
• Norfolk
• Williamsburg
• Wytheville

These. Now crawl back into your cardboard box. 3 stars? Please, only if they're Michelin stars.

I know a user called Gus had his comment removed about the owners of the Mid City Nursery in American Canyon, California supporting prop 8. He wrote to me that it had been removed shortly after I posted a similar comment. Today, I got a notice that my own comment was removed.

In my post, I expressed that I would not be shopping there anymore because their owners open supported for prop 8, that the owners hurt many of its patrons' families, and that it tarnished my ability to appreciate the products I had purchased there. I even went as far as to say I did not blame the employees and that their products as a whole were not bad but that I did not want to have the money I spent there used against my family. I am not sure how this would not be appropriate for a consumer review. Wouldn't conservatives want to know if a local business that they were spending money on was supporting abortion, gay rights, or stem cell research. I would like to point it that they owners sent a letter to the gay community in the area using their company name and stating that they supported prop 8. It was not about their ideology, it was about the fact my money was going to be used to support causes that were causing harm to my family.

After reading about this and looking at the reviews of this establishment, I notice they are all positive to very positive. Now they are not a terrible nursery but they do have problems. I have seen mislabeled varieties, invasive weeds in their plants, and their water themed area is decayed and smells. It is not god awful, but I doubt everyone who goes there would find it awesome.

This is the link to the comment page where my comments were removed.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mid-city-nursery-american-canyon

Here is the letter they sent me about it. I would like to point out I was on the site the day they said it had been flagged, there where no flags that I saw. There were none for Gus either.

Hi Robert,

I'm writing to let you know that we decided to remove your reviews of Mid City Nursey after it was flagged by the Yelp community. It is undoubtedly a controversial issue for a business or one of its employees to take a stand on Proposition 8. While we encourage you to exercise your free speech rights with respect to this issue, consumer reviews are not the place to do it.

As our review guidelines (http://www.yelp.com/faq#great_review) state: "Reviews aren't the place for rants about a business's employment practices, political ideologies, or other matters that don't address the core of the normal customer experience." We trust you recognize that our decision impacts both sides of this debate equally, and that our policy has been in place long before this issue emerged.

Regards,
Pam
Yelp User Support
San Francisco, California

I know a user called Gus had his comment removed about the owners of the Mid City Nursery in American Canyon, California supporting prop 8. He wrote to me that it had been removed shortly after I posted a similar comment. Today, I got a notice that my own comment was removed.

In my post, I expressed that I would not be shopping there anymore because their owners open supported for prop 8, that the owners hurt many of its patrons' families, and that it tarnished my ability to appreciate the products I had purchased there. I even went as far as to say I did not blame the employees and that their products as a whole were not bad but that I did not want to have the money I spent there used against my family. I am not sure how this would not be appropriate for a consumer review. Wouldn't conservatives want to know if a local business that they were spending money on was supporting abortion, gay rights, or stem cell research. I would like to point it that they owners sent a letter to the gay community in the area using their company name and stating that they supported prop 8. It was not about their ideology, it was about the fact my money was going to be used to support causes that were causing harm to my family.

After reading about this and looking at the reviews of this establishment, I notice they are all positive to very positive. Now they are not a terrible nursery but they do have problems. I have seen mislabeled varieties, invasive weeds in their plants, and their water themed area is decayed and smells. It is not god awful, but I doubt everyone who goes there would find it awesome.

This is the link to the comment page where my comments were removed.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mid-city-nursery-american-canyon

Here is the letter they sent me about it. I would like to point out I was on the site the day they said it had been flagged, there where no flags that I saw. There were none for Gus either.

Hi Robert,

I'm writing to let you know that we decided to remove your reviews of Mid City Nursey after it was flagged by the Yelp community. It is undoubtedly a controversial issue for a business or one of its employees to take a stand on Proposition 8. While we encourage you to exercise your free speech rights with respect to this issue, consumer reviews are not the place to do it.

As our review guidelines (http://www.yelp.com/faq#great_review) state: "Reviews aren't the place for rants about a business's employment practices, political ideologies, or other matters that don't address the core of the normal customer experience." We trust you recognize that our decision impacts both sides of this debate equally, and that our policy has been in place long before this issue emerged.

Regards,
Pam
Yelp User Support
San Francisco, California

I posted a negative review on yelp and not it's not there unless I sign in. Here is the link: http://www.yelp.com/biz/driscolls-package-store-inc-andover

Link:
http://officialblog.yelp.com/2009/02/kathleen-richards-east-bay-express.html

It looks like the CEO has posted his response to the piece. It appears to be quite well documented and researched. Possibly more so than the original article:

http://officialblog.yelp.com/2009/02/kathleen-richards-east-bay-express.html

Check out: http://www.lyonspinball.com/ and http://www.yelp.com/biz/arcade-amusements-inc-manitou-springs

I've never been there, but Yelpers don't seem terribly enamored with the place.

Full body one, I'm thinking.

Or do as this bloke does

I don't know how well it will work for Bill's Deli in more rural areas. Eventually, perhaps, but I don't see it happening soon.

It's not Google Maps, but time to wake up. Don't know where you live, but it's pretty nice for NYC. It's linked from every location on Yelp, which is a splendiferous website, if you're not already aware of it.

And though it can't help you with schedules, Google Maps/Earth already plot metro stops, which is usually sufficient for me.

The reason this matters is that there are no Linux laptops available from any vendor bigger than a garage shop.

Yes, there's Linux Certified, in the same building with Mr. Chau's Chinese Fast Food in San Jose. And there's System76, whose address is a Pak Mail in Denver.

If you're selling hardware that may have to be maintained or replaced, you need to be bigger than that to play.

Of course, once upon a time there was VA Linux, but we know what happened to them.

Palo Alto has a place called Neotte. This is a tea bar with WiFi and a power strip at every table. Everybody there is on a laptop. The tea is about $4, and they have a modest selection of bakery items. It's the next notch up from Starbucks.

Perhaps a upscale gamer cafe where you bring your own laptop...

I suppose the fad aspect will be determined by how useful the content generated by the users is. With Myspace, the content is necessarily fad-based, because the site revolves around music: a pretty fad-oriented industry.
Take another social networking site: Yelp and the content is somewhat different. It is focused on store and restaurant reviews. Still somewhat fad-based, but the information is perhaps a bit longer-lasting than that for a local band. And maybe more useful for travel.

Basically, it depends on the content generated and how useful it is going forward, I would expect.