So at some point I presume the go full "Yellow Pages" and just charge venues a monthly fee to appear at all in their pages. That works if they are generating significant foot traffic into the venue but fails if they can't connect the app/website use with the visit.
I think it's useful at this point to ask why various directories had value during their heyday. The "Yellow Pages" had value, simply because there wasn't as comprehensive a localized listing otherwise. Yelp had value at first, because the reviews and ratings combined with the location search were super useful. Unfortunately, too many people realized how valuable this was and the gaming of the system on all sides started, greatly reducing the usefulness of the Yelp directory.
Google might be able to create a such directory based solely on traffic and AI identification of the type of business? Could AI identify long lines outside of restaurants? Maybe Google should buy Yelp, which would solve the "pay Google up front" conundrum. Whatever IP Yelp has which killed the "near" searches on Google would also cease to be an impediment to Google.
> Unfortunately, too many people realized how valuable this was and the gaming of the system on all sides started, greatly reducing the usefulness of the Yelp directory.
I'm not sure if this is exactly it or if you're letting Yelp off the hook. Yelp was perfectly happy to try to profit from the gaming. That didn't just damage its usefulness. It damaged trust; and trust is a lot harder to get back.
I'm not sure if this is exactly it or if you're letting Yelp off the hook.
Not letting them off the hook. Yelp contributed to this through their actions.
It damaged trust; and trust is a lot harder to get back.
That was a part of what I was thinking about. One advantage of the Yellow Pages: less opportunity to lose trust. I think displaying AI interpreted traffic has a key advantage over ratings: It would cost a whole lot more money to get crowds to show up day after day with smartphones, than it would cost to get people to astroturf ratings.
I've seen that part of the Google listing, which is part of the reason why I made the suggestion. Google shouldn't just go by raw traffic, however. Traffic means different things at different times to different kinds of venues. High traffic at the DMV doesn't mean it's an awesome place. A line of 20 people means one thing to a sit down restaurant and something very different to a Boba tea place.
I suspect that AI applied here would be highly useful.
Right but if you're talking about restaurants, where people want to be (rather than the DMV where they have to be), I don't see why busyness isn't essentially the same as looking at lines outside.
A line of 20 outside a sit down restaurant that isn't even open means one thing if it's 30 minutes before it opens, another if it's already open. A line of 10 in front of a Boba tea place means something very different than a line of 10 in front of a sit down restaurant.
Busyness wouldn't just be used as a measure of busyness. It could be used as a proxy for other qualities. Another example: There are restaurants that have ample waiting areas and others that have none. Those in the waiting area wouldn't necessarily mean the same thing to a customer's experience than the same people seated at a table. Likewise for people standing outside vs. waiting inside.
At a very basic level, throughput (Little's Law) should also be taken into account.
My point is there would be value in such proxy measures, if some AI were used for interpretation.
> Google might be able to create a such directory based solely on traffic and AI identification of the type of business? Could AI identify long lines outside of restaurants?
Google already does plenty of stuff like this, and has for years (including historical and live busyness). Hell, I haven't used Yelp in years, because their app is generally less usable, isn't integrated with Maps (for directions etc), and cripples mobile web by not letting you see most of the content. Though it's possible that the data for G Maps is only comparably rich because of my location, and that Yelp has a data advantage in many more markets.
Google already does plenty of stuff like this, and has for years (including historical and live busyness).
I'm well aware. There's a cousin comment about using such data with contextual information and AI to use traffic data as a proxy for attributes like popularity and quality, instead of providing the raw data and letting users make their own inferences. This would enable a more Yelp-like UX, and might be easier for lots of users to consume.
I think it's useful at this point to ask why various directories had value during their heyday. The "Yellow Pages" had value, simply because there wasn't as comprehensive a localized listing otherwise. Yelp had value at first, because the reviews and ratings combined with the location search were super useful. Unfortunately, too many people realized how valuable this was and the gaming of the system on all sides started, greatly reducing the usefulness of the Yelp directory.
Google might be able to create a such directory based solely on traffic and AI identification of the type of business? Could AI identify long lines outside of restaurants? Maybe Google should buy Yelp, which would solve the "pay Google up front" conundrum. Whatever IP Yelp has which killed the "near" searches on Google would also cease to be an impediment to Google.