Yelp: Social networking meets restaurant reviews

John C. Dvorak's latest column is about Yelp, a new site that combines social networking a la Friendster to restaurant and business reviews a la Epinions. If you're looking for a restaurant you can see what others have recommended and their ratings, plus other places they've rated, what their friends have rated, and so on. As Dvorak says, "If it turns out that a person likes Denny's and hates Le Bec-Fin in Philadelphia, then that person is probably not someone who would be great at suggesting fabulous French restaurants, but he might be good at finding a coffee shop." Apart from restaurants, Yelp also includes categories for "Night Life," "Beauty and Spas,"  "Acitve Life," and more. Refreshingly, Yelp has some modern features like inline Google Maps and RSS feeds. Unfortunately there's not a single Yelp-reviewed restaurant within 100 miles of me, but maybe if Yelp is able to reach critical mass, that will change.

Tags: reviews, social networking, social software, web 2.0, yelp