FOR polar or lunar exploration, we are an intrepid species, eagerly vying with one another to be first. But we’re not so brave when it comes to being the first to buy a particular product or service. We much prefer letting someone else go on ahead and report back.
Like others, I used to rely on professional critics for guidance in many domains — restaurants, movies, books. When the Web arrived and the opinion of every single customer could easily be published online, we began to listen to one another instead. Amazon.com was a pioneer in offering customer reviews of books and many other products.
But there was a nagging concern. Without knowing reviewers’ real identities, couldn’t we be misled? In 2004, a computer glitch at Amazon temporarily revealed the real names of its reviewers, including, in at least one instance, a book author who had submitted rave reviews of his own books.
Fortunately, the sites that welcome customer reviews have evolved significantly. One of the best, Yelp, has replaced the cult of the anonymous amateur with a design that highlights the judgments of the exceptional few. These dedicated reviewers produce work that, in quantity and quality, increasingly approaches that of their professional forebears, and they are willing to divulge personal information about themselves.
Founded in 2005 in San Francisco and now covering 21 metropolitan areas, Yelp invites customers to review any business that has a street address. It covers most everything — doctors, carpet cleaners, tattoo parlors — but may be best known for its restaurant reviews. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, it covers more than 19,000 restaurants; in New York City, more than 8,600.
Randall Stross is an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of business at San Jose State University. E-mail: stross@nytimes.com.
