Digital Technology AnalysisMobile Application: Yelp

WSA Global Media ManagementXiu Lulu Student Number: 27780163

Contents

Part 1 Marketing and Branding

Part 2 Technological Affordances

Part 3 User Experience

Part 1 Marketing and Branding

Yelp mobile application

Founded in 2004One of the most popular consumer evaluation sites (Kuehn 2013)Function: Helping people to choose local businesses based on local reviews and social networking functionality (Ariyasriwatana, W. et al 2014)

(Figure 1)

Yelp TV Commercial: Whatever you need, check Yelp firsthttps://youtu.be/pAXPY2dBq9I

Yelp: A local guide to help users to search for nearby restaurants, shops, and other services.

(Figure 2. locating nearby services)

Video 1. Yelp TV commervial promotional video

Yelp: Public comments software

Yelp port their digital strategies into social environments by broadcasting their commercial messages or seeking customer feedback.” (Piskorski, M. J. 2011).

Consumers can grade a mark to the merchant from 1 to 5 stars and write comments.

User Generated Content. Users write comments and post photographs or video after their consumption

(mobilephone screenshot)

Part 2 Technological affordancesYelp Homepage: Restaurants, Bars, Coffee &Tea, Delivery, Reservations and other categories.

Three buttons on the bottom of homepage: Nearby, Search, Activity.

(Mobile screenshot from Yelp APP)

In order to make the reviews more reliable and easy to spread,Yelp users can...

Mark the reviews. Users can make comments on the existing user reviews, such as “useful”, “funny” and “cool”.

Interaction. Users reviews can be report and shared with Facebook, Messengers ,Wechat and so on.

(Mobile screenshot from Yelp APP)

Yelp owns social media features. Users can sign up with Facebook accounts or Google accounts to log in.

Social network features. Yelp enables and encourages reviewers to establish social images or reputation (Wang 2010)

(Figure 3. Yelp sign up and log in)

Yelp also focuses on building its own social networking platforms to enhance communication with Yelp users.

such as...

Yelp Blog. http://officialblog.yelp.com/Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/yelpTwitter. https://twitter.com/yelpInstagram. https://instagram.com/yelp

Part 3 User ExperienceFor

Users appreciate Yelp helping them to find satisfied services and get useful information from others

Against

Some users doubt that Yelp may remove some low ratings and negative reviews online, or delete some truthful comments.

Users have different tastes, Yelp can not meet different demands.

Search filter is not clear and concise enough to find more detailed results.

Positive and negative voices on Apple Store

Figure 4. Consumer reviews on App Store

Why does Yelp hide reviews?https://youtu.be/s1lJuu44cJA?t=58 (from this point to 2:37)

https://youtu.be/s1lJuu44cJA?t=324 (from here to 5:42)Yelp's explanation

Video 2. Why does Yelp hide reviews

To improve users research experience, Yelp Improving search filters

The former search filter

The advanced search filter (Figure 5 Yelp. com search filter)

Conclusion

As a mobile App, Yelp have powerful features to provide local services.

Consumer comments on Yelp are effective to judge the merchant.

Continuous improvement and innovation are necessary for Yelp.

ReferencesAriyasriwatana, W. et al (2014). Categorizing health-related cues to action: using Yelp reviews of restaurants in Hawaii. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 20(4), pp. 317-340.

Kuehn, K. M. (2013). " There’s Got to be a Review Democracy": Communicative Capitalism, Neoliberal Citizenship and the Politics of Participation on the Consumer Evaluation Website Yelp. com. International Journal of Communication, 7, pp. 19.

Piskorski, M. J. (2011). Social strategies that work. Harvard Business Review, 89(11), pp. 116-122.

Wang, Z. (2010). Anonymity, social image, and the competition for volunteers: a case study of the online market for reviews. The BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 10(1).

List of Figures

Figure 1. Westlake, A. (2015) Yelp sues websites that promise businesses all positive reviews. [image online] Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Yelp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJuM7o06LKAhWFuRQKHST5BTgQ_AUICCgB&biw=1366&bih=622 [Accessed 10/1/2016]

Figure 2. Yelp (2016) Locating nearby services. Available at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yelp/id284910350?mt=8 [Accessed 10/1/2016]

Figure 3. Yelp (2015) Yelp iPhone iPad and Apple Watch. Available at: http://pttrns.com/applications/448 [Accessed 10/1/2016]

Figure 4. Consumer reviews on App Store. Availabel at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yelp/id284910350?mt=8 [Accessed 10/1/2016]

Figure 5. Yelp (2015) Yelp. com search filter. Available at: NYhttp://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=after+work+bars&find_loc=New+York%2C+NY&ns=1 [Accessed 10/1/2016]

List of Videos

Vedio 1. Yelp (2015) Yelp TV commercial 2015. [Online video]. Available at: https://youtu.be/pAXPY2dBq9I [Accessed 8/1/2016]

Vedio 2. Washington Post (2014) Why does Yelp hide reviews. [Online video]. Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1lJuu44cJA [Accessed 11/1/2016]