Spend 10 minutes with me and I’ll mention Yelp multiple times. I guess you would say I’m a Yelp evangelist.  A member of the Yelp Elite Squad and frequent attendee at Yelp NYC events, I have even given Yelp’s app a coveted spot on the front screen of my iPhone.  And it warms my heart to say that I’m familiar with almost every Yelper mentioned in the NYTimes’ piece yesterday about the close-knit community (also see the response of the Yelp community to the article.)

A cross between a local business review site and a social networking site, Yelp encourages user transparency and discourages anonymity.  Like Amazon’s “Real Name” Badge, Yelp profiles are expected to have real names, real personal information, and real user photos — a requirement, in fact, to become Yelp elite.  Transparency makes it easy to distinguish trustworthy reviews (those written by active users with completed profiles and dozens of reviews under their belts) and untrustworthy reviews (those written by new users with few reviews and a question mark for their profile picture).

From the beginning, Yelp has attracted attention for mixing business and pleasure to build their brand among young people (see: business paradigm shifts and free tequila shots).  Yelp has created a grassroots movement, attracting thousands of reviewers and it has galvanized that userbase to write millions of reviews of local businesses.

Yelp hit a chord, creating a vibrant online community unlike any other I have ever seen — a community worthy of an entire NYTimes article!  I love Yelp because it’s one of a kind — how many online communities do you know in which the users regularly take their conversations offline, autonomously organizing events and meetups in the real world? (excluding the obvious exception of meetup.com where organizing meetups in the real world is the main objective)

Yelp is a phenomenon which may never occur again — online communities this active are unheard of, and twenty years from now I’m sure I’ll reminisce about how some website brought me together with complete strangers.  I’ll also look back on the good ol’ days when Yelp would spend their VC money on open bars at trendy clubs (a practice eerily reminiscent of the first dotcom bubble).

The profile page shows how many votes and compliments a user has received.

“OMG, it was total choco-gasm!” — the NYTimes points to this as representative of the crude reviews on Yelp.  But Yelp succeeds precisely because of witty quips like this.  They’re fun to read, and they’re fun to write.  Yelp gives its users a chance to exercise and develop their unique voice. Yelp is Xanga/Blogger for the 21st century.

Yelp is a form of self-expression (and also justification for trying new restaurants or ordering that extra dessert which sounds oh so good).  But users don’t want to write in a vacuum.  People want to be acknowledged for their contributions.  People want to know they’re making a difference in the lives of others.  And Yelp makes this happen with votes and compliments. As Becca S. notes,  “People tell you you’re cool, you’re funny, you’re a good writer.” The key to the Yelp equation is the successful gift economy centered around positive reinforcement from other users.