Yelp! can’t avoid trouble for love or money. It seems like almost everyday, the hugely popular review site finds itself in some sort of public hot water. Be it lawsuit, business backlash, or even bribery, they have their share of public relation problems. The latest snafu comes at the expense of Apple, and their seemingly ubiquitous iPhone.
This isn’t a tech blog, so I’ll spare ya’ll the techie talk … but here’s the long of the short. Apple has introduced something called Augmented Reality (AR) [Wikipedia] for the iPhone. In this case, AR allows you to utilize a mashup (tech talk for “combination”) of online maps, street view, and yelp reviews. Here’s how it works:
Looks and sounds pretty cool huh? The problem is … the developers of the Yelp App had to jump through some hoops to get it in place before the release of the upcoming iPhone update. The end result is the Easter egg described above. Now there’s been a lot of love bestowed upon the app and its makers (here and here), but a guest post over on TechCrunch raises some points that have some people scratching their heads.
Yelp isn’t a frequent stop for me, but I do shoot over there every once in a blue moon (foodiebuddha.yelp.com). It’s a site that absolutely has some utility … but I just can’t figure out why they keep pissing so many people off. Keep in mind, I’m not talking about the people who frequent Yelp or our very own Ambassador. I’m just sayin’ – the people calling the shots seem to have a pension for punishment.
Speaking of just sayin – here’s your laugh of the day:
