Yelp is defined as a loud, sharp, bark or cry. This is not what I think of when I think of the iPhone app. I do think of it screaming to my friends and family “HEY! Over here! LOOK! Look where I am!” but I would not necessarily call that a yelp. When I think of yelp, I think of a dog crying in pain. Whatever the reason the developers decided to call this app Yelp, it is certainly working out in their favor. Yelp has thousands of users worldwide. It has reached many iTunes Top lists over the course of its life. There has to be a reason for that, and there is.
The developers of Yelp have taken the Verizon “can you hear me now” and VH1’s “where are they now” and squished it down into this tiny app. Hello! Here I am! Can you see me? No? What about now? Check my Facebook, check my Twitter, check your own Yelp account. I am there. I promise.
All silliness aside, I love Yelp. Not that I really need one more social networking tool, but in all fairness, this one is different. I can plant myself at a location and let everyone on my Yelp, Twitter and Facebook list know where I am. Of course, there have been times where this has backfired as I recently got a text from a cousin wanting to know why I was in town and not visiting her! OOPS!
I have been using Yelp for about a month now. When it first came out, or when I first heard of it, not sure which came before the other, I could not locate anything by me (thank you small town, America). I don’t know what happened between the changes from then to now. Now I have almost everything that is as close to me as can be within the Yelp radius. Not only can I plot myself, as I like to say, I can also review the place I am visiting, bookmark my favorites, and there is even a section for sales and special offers. Bonus!
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