Qype can be described as the European Yelp. The app finds your location and serves restaurant reviews, nightlife suggestions and general crowd-sourced information about your area. Qype is very much community-driven in that it doesn’t use API sets from databases such as OpenTable, but rather relies on purely community input. Since the app doesn’t have a huge presence in North America, it isn’t as useful as if it were used in Germany or the UK. If you’re planning a trip to Europe, this could be the ideal tourist app for you to bring along. Also, you could pioneer a community in North America in your home city. Continue reading ‘Qype Location-Based Review and Discovery App with OTA Download Links’
Today Yelp launched their free application for BlackBerry. Yelp is one of the leading websites in providing community reviews of restaurants and information about local businesses. What makes the Yelp community more reliable in terms of reviews, is their system of attaching more weight to experienced reviewers. This makes it very difficult to manipulate.
Try it out and see what Yelp recommends in your neighborhood.
I have been in the mobile space for some time and back when I used to follow mobile gaming really closely, companies would keep a close eye on their ratings on various forums. A rumor was circulating about a particular company that would have its QA team rate all their latest releases perfectly, while rating the competition poorly. Shortly afterwards, the cheating company would see its games rise to the top, while the competition would fall several points.
This is a perfect example of how community review systems are flawed and open to manipulation. Now, it’s not clear whether this sort of cheating is happening on App World right now, but it’s obviously possible.
BlipSocial just launched their beta, featuring some really cool location-based services that don’t require GPS. It’ll plug into Yelp, Facebook, BART train times, weather, and movie showtimes. It’s also got an API available for other parties who want to mobilize some of their information without having to go through the hassle of building an app from the ground up. A cute application, and if you’re a Yelper at all, it could be worth your time. Head on over to www.blipsocial.com on your mobile browser to get going!
