Difference between Yelp and Foursquare
The next step towards globalization is localization again! Well, it might sound weird at first thought but this is what is happening in the world of Internet lately. With innumerable websites on Internet that offer you infinite global opportunities to explore, the paradigm these days has partly shifted to the location based websites confined to local regions. People have also shown their appreciation to the concept by turning out in huge numbers to surf such location based websites and making them a big success. In fact they regard these websites of much more utility in their real life than any other website. Yelp and Foursquare are such two famous location based Internet services that we are going to compare here.
Services offered
Yelp is a location based website that offers social networking and local search services for many cities in US. The Yelp database contains huge amounts of local information with the minutest of details and users’ reviews about local businesses and services. If you are a registered user, you can post your review on any local service or business in your vicinity. The social profiles of the users and their reputation are updated in accordance with their contribution to the website. Foursquare is a location based social networking website that helps you connect with friends via web or mobile applications. The main attraction to the website is the race of points and badges among the users. You earn points and badges when you ‘check-in’ at certain venues or locations. Besides, you can also earn ‘super user’ status if you frequently check in new venues or locations and enter information about them into Foursquare. The Foursquare mobile application is currently available for iPhone, Android, webOS, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry mobiles.
Popularity
The number of people surfing Yelp every month is over 31 million which puts Yelp in the list of 150 most popular US websites. As of June 2010, Foursquare had 1.3 million registered users using its services. Foursquare has increased it cover in the last year. It now allows ‘check-ins’ from any location in the world. The popularity of the website is vouched by the fact that Internet behemoth Yahoo! has offered 125 million USD to buy Foursquare.
Criticism
Yelp has faced severe criticism over the issue of illegitimate negative reviews on many local products and services by the rival businesses. In response to it, the company has now implemented a review filtering algorithm to guard against fake reviews. The reviewers who write negative reviews about certain business and services on Yelp have also been targeted by the business owners. Foursquare has managed to keep a clean image among the mass and has not been involved in any controversies yet.
Summary
- Yelp and Foursquare are the two location based web services.
- Foursquare is completely a social networking service whereas Yelp is basically a local information search engine that also provides social networking facility.
- Yelp is criticized for the validity of negative reviews published on the website.
- Both Yelp and Foursquare are among the most popular services in the category of location-based Internet services.
