Jon Steinberg » YelpSquare

[Comments where lost when I moved from WordPress to Posterous ]

Yelp launched a version of FourSquare’s check-in functionality in the new version of their iphone app last night. This reminds me of a conversation that I had with a friend just days before about how hard it is to build and maintain consumer internet beachheads in a world of giants. My analogy is velociraptors that have the luxury of lying in wait for their next meal, and then stealthily attacking when you least expect it. Just like in Jurassic Park, just as you start to think you’ve found a safe niche in the locked kitchen, the raptors learn to open doornobs - or perhaps they always did! With that said, the Yelp functionality is not all there yet, and in fact has some serious flaws. The following screenshots show a mock checkin I did at Grays Papaya. This is the check in screen, notice how I’m able to add what in FourSquare would be called a “shout” to my checkin and flow it to Twitter and Facebook:
The checkin flows to Facebook with complete text:
However, when it arrives at Twitter, it’s lost the most important text, my commentary:
(Note the timing on these screens does not line up, as I re-mocked them up. But I’ve tested a few times and the text of my commentary never seems to make it to Twitter. Let me know in the comments if you see otherwise) Also the idea of adding your commentary as a “tip” rather than a “shout” feels awkward. I don’t have a tip every time. The social functionals also seem a bit burried. In general the experience is a bit incongruous, and I’m left wondering why Yelp didn’t just buy FourSquare. I also seem to need to bounce between the feeds and checkins tab. I haven’t yet gotten to experience the gaming dynamics, but Yelp has “regulars” and “The Regular with the most Check-ins will not only be featured on that business page, but get to wear the golden badge of honor.” I’m not making this up; I’m creative but not that creative. Yelp has a million users of their app. With the Foursquare user base north of 150,000 users, I think Yelp getting 10% c onversion to use this feature is a stretch. With that said, the competition in consumer internet is beyond brutal. Just when you think it’s a FourSquare/Gowalla showdown, a tanker comes out of the ocean and into their brackish estuary.