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2May/110

Yelp weekend

It was quite an eventful weekend for me as I took part in my first Yelp Elite event. As I previously mentioned, Yelp is an online website that focuses around reviews by members, which can be anyone who chooses to write, of different establishments such as restaurants, hotels, stores, and other places such as parks, cemeteries, festivals, etc. Each city that has enough members who is also represented by at least one community leader may also have various events. Such events are for Elite members, those of whom have been chosen by Yelp who have contributed to the website in the way of reviews, photos, etc.

This Friday, there was an event held at the Atlantica Hotel on Quinpool Road. It was the first such event for Halifax and there were quite a lot of people in attendance. Upwards of 80 for the entire night. There was food, live music, wine, beer and lots of socializing. Halifax singer Sheva was the live act, wine came from Bishop's Cellar, beer from Garrison and food from Seasons, the hotel's restaurant.

Sheva Ben - community representative Fellow Elite Kirk

In addition to this was a grand prize open to all Elite members. It was a night-stay in one of the hotel's executive rooms. We were given a tour of the room and it was absolutely fantastic. We were each given a hotel key card and whichever one opened the door had the room for the night. As odd luck would have it... I had it! I was floored. I wouldn't have expected to have gotten such a room for the night. It was amazing. Unfortunately, being so late, Adam and I only had the room for about 12 hours but it would have been the perfect place to have some friends over and hang out. It was multiple rooms, and even had an office. The type of place to have for a week's vacation on a business trip or something.

We had a free breakfast too but unfortunately missed that. But that was alright, it was still a great night and what a pleasant surprise. Yelp is definitely worth it!

Here's Yelp's blog post.

Here are some more photos from Yelp's Flickr page.

Tagged as: Atlantica, Food, hotel, Photos, yelp No Comments

6Apr/112

None Ya Biz!

It's funny to think about how we have a tendency to come up with a complete profile on someone we really know nothing about, based only on one aspect of what we barely know about them.

As I mentioned previously, I've become quite taken by Yelp. The online social site based around user-reviews of any public space, restaurants, parks, cafes, malls, stores, etc, etc. You can read reviews, write them, upload helpful photos, give ratings, make lists, and so on. There's also an app for Yelp where you can do all of this as well as "check in" to these businesses. When you check in twice to one establishment, you're listed as being a "regular" to this place. If you check in more than anyone else, you're "the duke" or "duchess" of the place. The person with the most "dukedoms" is known under Yelp (of the particular) city as being "the king".
There's a section under the rankings for "royalty" where the king is listed as well as the next top 5 people with the most dukedoms.
And finally, each week there's a list of "weekly check-ins" where you are ranked amongst everyone else in your city for the most places checked into.
All in all, this is something that would normally be up my alley. I love a bit of friendly competition in addition to offering reviews and exploring new places in the process! It was fun!

For awhile. I quickly discovered the existence of someone who seems to abuse the app and cheat. Now, do I know for sure? Absolutely not. But I had a duke of one park after checking in 5 times or so a few weeks ago. A park I pass through every day on my way to work. Within days, this one guy passed me. So I begin to check in on my way home too and regain my dukedom. He passes me again and since then I notice that he checks in 4 times a day now. Keeping in mind you can only check into one place once every four hours.

This character doesn't have any legitimate reviews. They're all one-liners. And it's doubtful that one person can have well over 50 dukedoms, more than double the next person in line, while contributing next to nothing to the site at all, also while suddenly logging in to random places and taking dukedoms out of nowhere. Another park I pass through occasionally I won the dukedom to after 3 logins but now he's suddenly nearly double my check-in total.

What I find interesting is that after this very brief non-interaction with this guy, I've come up with some sort of persona for who I think he is. I bet he's a single male in his mid-to-late 30s, probably slightly overweight who's very into gaming and computers but also eats out a lot. He lives alone in either a basement apartment or in an apartment building in the north end and doesn't socialize very often except while gaming. He probably works in an office job or otherwise with computers but not in a service position.
This is all completely in my imagination of course. I just find it highly amusing that it's what I've formed in my mind's cement that that's what this guy is.

I can say that he's taken the fun out of friendly competition. The difference between him is that I have a life and he doesn't. Well, during my periods of "no-life"ing, I've decided that he has no life. ...apparently his mere existence has given me a lot to think about...

Ok. I'm going to take a break from this whole new world of Yelp and enjoy the sunny day!...while I check in to places on Yelp... I can't escape!!!

Tagged as: "no life", profiling, yelp 2 Comments

29Mar/111

Yelp Me!

So I've completely jumped on the Yelp-train or fallen off the Yelp-wagon, or however you want to put it. Yelp is an online networking site based completely off of local businesses and specific locations fuelled by member reviews. Real reviews by real people. When I first signed up for it a month ago, I was surprised to learn that it had been around for at least a few years with tons of reviews already written, including a bunch for my own workplace.

I think the site itself is rather useful because more often than not, if you're planning on eating out, a good thing to do beforehand is to read the general consensus of what the restaurant has to offer in the words of regular folk that have already experienced it. Of course, this is all taking into account whether the opinions and reviews of people matter to you at all. I'm the type of person that enjoys reading reviews for anything but generally take them with a grain of salt. They can point me in the right direction or confirm what I've already decided but all-in-all, they're still opinion. I think they're simply useful to be a helpful deciding factor.

It's also useful because there's an app for Yelp where you can read reviews for a place before you go in. That way, you can hear the sirens before you walk through the door. Whether it be a restaurant, laundromat, convenience store, mall, even parks.

I've become quite a fan of reviews in the last little while. As I said before, they can be an important tool and for someone like me, it's a way for me to spread my opinions and have an excuse to write something that can actually be considered useful! All aboard the Yelp train!

My profile is always immediately available by using the Yelp logo just above on the right but you can also click here