PounceNow » restaurants http://www.pouncenow.com Redefining media opportunities Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:42:24 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 en hourly 1 Yelp, at SXSW, responds to critics about doctor, restaurant reviews http://www.pouncenow.com/2010/03/yelp-at-sxsw-responds-to-critics-about-doctor-restaurant-reviews/ http://www.pouncenow.com/2010/03/yelp-at-sxsw-responds-to-critics-about-doctor-restaurant-reviews/#comments Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:10:28 +0000 Dave Armon http://www.pouncenow.com/?p=711

Two Yelp, Inc. community managers sat calmly during  a SXSW Interactive session, The Yelp Effect: When Everyone’s A Restaurant Critic,  in which the site’s user-generated reviews model received a bit of a thrashing.

Seattle-based Michelle Broderick and Austin-based Kevin Newsum, chimed in briefly to promote their availability following the panel, in which an Austin American-Statesman restaurant critic Addie Broyles and prolific Yelp contributor Jennie Chen led a broad-ranging discussion about restaurant marketing, the merits of user-generated reviews and frustrations over the power of Yelp.

After the session, Broderick acknowledged complaints from physicians that the review process is unfair and said the issue is complex because federal privacy regulations inhibit medical professionals’ ability to respond to reviews. Restaurants can say they served you an appetizer but doctors can’t say they took out your appendix, said Broderick.

The Yelp social media staffers denied the review process is tainted by a pay-to-suppress-negative-reviews policy.

Yelp was hit with a lawsuit on March 3 in San Diego alleging it removed positive reviews for a business that declined to advertise on the site. It was the second such suit filed against the company, according to TechCrunch.

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