Yelp and its Features

"You're looking smart today, Andrea" is the first thing I read when I directed my browser to the famous, maybe lightly infamous site, yelp. So obviously, their first and foremost feature is to compliment the guest. So, as many of you already know, Yelp is the place where you can write a review about a store or restaurant you've been to. Tons of people use Yelp; tons of people love Yelp. People probably plan their days around what this website has to say.
Why? I would say that the first reason is probably because you can get a review on almost any place in America. Second, I would say is that they have tons, yes TONS, of features.

Besides compliments, their homepage has a reviews near you box.

Where, as you can see, people have recently written their thoughts and opinions about places in your town. I personally like this feature. It seems interesting to me that I can go to this website without an idea of where I would like to eat/shop/whatever and get some fresh ideas (but based on that article I'm not too sure how much I like that concept since these spots are obviously paid for). But you know, if I hadn't read that article and since I have no prior knowledge to the subject, it would seem to me that this feature was a keeper.

Another feature they have, though I think it may be a little mute, is you can create your own profile. You can, much like facebook and all the other SNS out there, add a picture, say where you're from, add a nickname, make lists of your favorite places, invite and have friends, and of course, showcase your many Yelp contributions. I think the only helpful thing of the profile is to keep track of the posts you've made. If I was looking at Yelp for some guidance, I wouldn't be worried about where the comments came from.

Next, you can have discussions with people on pretty much any topic out there.

If you can't see, this one is about invisible TV characters. You can see the people commenting with their profile picture to give them some sort of cyberspace identity. On the left you can see the different discussions you can get into.

Another feature they have is messaging. I've had some experience with this one. I like this feature because after I wrote the review in response to a different vicious review made about Family Grounds Cafe, the owner sent me a message saying thank you which was rewarding that my review was taken to heart. On the other hand, the original attacker also sent me a message which was rewarding in the sense that I actually laughed out loud.

Then the last pretty cool feature is the events. Not only just events, events that are in your area. And it's right in the front, easily assessable, waiting for you to click on it.

I don't know, I guess we have Columbia e-mails and posters/advertisements all around the city for that but whatever, it's there if you want it.

For the most part, those are the only features I thought were good in some sense. Sorry if my tone is kind of mellow, that article kind of makes my head spin on things like, you know, today's morals, the fact that money buys everything, the manipulative existence of huge companies, global destruction. So be wary because, as they say, not everything thing is what it seems (spooky 1970's Halloween music here).