A friend of mine sent me an invitation to connect via Yelp this morning.
Though I’m very engaged with Foursquare and (to a lesser extent) Gowalla, Yelp is the one major geolocation-based social service that I really have not embraced so far. Whether it is because of the various controversies that have surrounded it or the fact that I have not so far felt it worth my while to contribute to its review database, I’m not sure.
But when the invite came in, I went to the Yelp website and accepted it. I decided to make another attempt to use the service.
Of course, a social networking service is of minimal value unless you have a network of connections, so I next sought out the Invite Friends page. There I would be able to invite selected members of my Facebook and Twitter networks who are already on Yelp to connect with me.
To my surprise and disappointment, I did not see either of those available to me. My only option seemed to be manual entry of my friends’ email addresses.
Pasting a list of email addresses? That’s so 2008. Not to mention the fact that it puts the onus on me to know which of the friends in my email address book are actively engaged in social media. I refuse to spam the rest of them.
Both the Foursquare and Gowalla websites easily accommodate adding friends via the most popular social networks, as seen below:
Then I remembered that Yelp had recently established a partnership with Facebook through which information about my Facebook friends was to be shared with Yelp. So I returned again to the Invite Friends page, and noticed this at the bottom:
Clicking on the red “Become friends with them now” button took me to a page (below) where I was able to choose from among the listed friends and send them invitations to join me on Yelp. [I also checked the Yelp iPhone app and verified that a similar capability exists there.]
While I wish the capability to connect with Facebook Friends was integrated into the Invite Friends page itself (and maybe that’s in the works), this is definitely a step in the right direction. However, it’s not enough.
To be truly competitive with Foursquare and Gowalla, Yelp needs to add Twitter integration to its website and mobile applications.
A much higher percentage of my Twitter friends and followers are on Foursquare and Gowalla then are my Facebook friends, though there is a very small bit of overlap. I suspect the same thing is true for most people likely to use Yelp, so I’d like to see them join the party and open the door to connecting with Twitter.
Either way, I’m going to attempt to get into the Yelp habit this summer and see where that takes me.
Maybe I’ll see you there too!
Do you use Yelp? What about the other geolocation services mentioned above? Which is your favorite and why?
David Swinney helps businesses implement social media strategies and plans in order to identify customers and their influencers, engage them in conversation, and leverage those connections to improve the bottom line.
As a technologist with a background in social media, corporate communications, technical and customer support, vendor relationship and project management, he is able to comfortably discuss various social media topics with managers, individual contributors, and just plain folks.
Contact David if you're looking for someone to create, build, and enhance your customer relationships using social media tools and technologies. 
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