Yelp Research (mini) Project

I am a huge fan of local review site, Yelp.com. I have been amazed at how active and dedicated Yelp’s community is. A good portion of the members have each written hundreds (even thousands) of reviews, posted numerous threads in the forum, created multiple lists, and continually give “compliments” to other members. I can honestly say it is one of the most active online communities out there.

This fascination lead me to a question that I was dieing to answer. Why in the world do so many people contribute so much to Yelp? But instead of making conjectures based on my experiences and opinions, I wanted to go to the source. I thought about doing a huge research project until I realized I was kidding myself in how much time it would take. So a few months ago I did something much more simple, but yet still very interesting which I thought I would share.

The Method
I posed as a college student doing a research paper on online communities. I received answers in two ways. One, I randomly messaged users on the site, and two, I posted the question to the user forums. These were not multiple choice questions, rather I took peoples free responses and categorized them best I could.

Question 1: Why do you write reviews on yelp?

NOTE: 110 total people responded. Some people responded with more then one answer.

58% Share opinion/Help Others
23.6% To socialize and meet new people
16.4% Kill time at work
10% Liked receiving feedback from others
9% To become an “Elite” member
10% Other

This made me even more interested. So I followed up with a second question.

Question 2: Why do you use Yelp and not other sites?

NOTE: 64 total people responded. Some users gave more then one answer.

62% Strong Community
29% Because they liked getting feedback via the site
19% Ease of use
19% Wanted to become an “Elite” member
3% A friend invited them
1.5% Because they were paid to post at first
9% Other

Disclaimer: These stats are not meant to be all inclusive, definitive, or 100% accurate by any means. They were only meant to get a rough idea.

[tags]Social Networking, Social Network, Online Community, Yelp, Yelp.com, Research, Brian Balfour[/tags]