I know a few people in the restaurant industry (owners/managers). They all say the same thing: at best engaging yelp ( and advertising on yelp ) is a non-negative. It does not bring enough new customers to justify its expense.

For about the same amount that yelp wanted for sponsorship, they got over 30 real, quality reviews that complimented the recent improvements that had been made.

Yelp sucks so not a top link. Seems to be working in a fair manner.

Or in the case of the example they brought up in the video, where they counted the number of reviews you could game that system by just creating fake reviews or trying to just get more of them through non-organic ways.

A classic example of a business that Google should be using their dominance against, but aren't.

All just glorified databases with different UI really. Yelp kind of has original content in people’s opinion of db entries.

YouTube however is slightly different since people post short and long form video on which is mostly original.

Interesting.

True, which makes me wonder why Google don't just add a bit of Pinterest-style functionality and then start applying search quality guidelines against Pinterest?

I know there are copyright issues but I expect Google would do a better job of linking to the original source - something Pinterest seem unable to do at all?

Yelp missed the industrialization of their industry by machine.

Knowing what you're doing isn't monopolistic.

Please describe what you consider a fair practice to seize a market in general terms.