Webware

If Google's rumored $500m acquisition of Yelp goes through, the search giant may finally get a solid lock on the "hyperlocal" Web. But it'll also be acquiring a big community site--and those are notoriously hard to wrangle.

Restaurant industry blog Eater might have put it best: "One can only assume that with Google's muscle behind the site, the millions of users who log on to complain about restaurants would be able to say stupid stuff faster, and with more efficiency," editor Amanda Kludt wrote on Friday.

All snark aside, it's the same sort of issue that arose a few years ago amid persistent rumors that Google was going to acquire Digg, another site reliant on heavy participation from a loyal and extremely vocal community. The questions are more or less similar: What would Google change, and how much would they change it? Does Google's massive scope make it untrustworthy?

Yelp's official word: "Yelp is approached frequently by numerous entities to discuss partnerships, investments and more, and the company does not comment on private discussions that may occur."

Truth be told, the state of Yelp's forums on Friday indicated that many were more interested in talking about "Why are NYC apartment brokers such d-bags?" and "The official 'Jersey Shore' on MTV thread" than about whether Yelp might get sucked up by the Google monster. But a few threads did emerge, and the gist seems to be pretty much the same: They better not change too much. And please keep throwing parties.

"I wonder how this will effect Elite parties as well as Yelp Talk?" one Yelper asked in a Bay Area-centric thread about the acquisition. Another said, "So long as it's not Rupert Murdoch buying it." Some Yelpers were optimistic, suggesting that maybe there would be better integration with Google maps or additional technical improvements.

But others were concerned about quality control. "It means more trolls and fake reviews," one Yelper griped.

"Anyone ever look at the comments on YouTube videos?" another asked. "That is what is gonna happen here."

There were a few threats of account deletion, like "If this happens, I'm deleting my profile" and "Yelp is big because of us. Let's demand money or delete our accounts en masse." Generally, those aren't any real indicator of community revolt, but they're a reminder that it's extremely possible for a big buyer of a community site to mess things up big-time. LiveJournal users weren't thrilled about its Six Apart ownership, which ultimately failed. Likewise, when News Corp. acquired social network MySpace, mismanagement and a lack of innovation were likely what led to a drop in traffic and the eventual dominance of Facebook.

Worth a read: Yelpers' reviews of Google HQ in Mountain View, Calif. Choice bits range from "Google has lots of yummy, organic snacks and drinks" to "They have way too many skunks after 7 p.m. nightly and raccoons living on the Google campus."

This post was updated at 10:48 a.m. PT with comment from Yelp.

As the health care debate rages on, we're still left wondering which doctor is best for what we need. Asking friends is a good way to find out about personal experiences, but one person's opinion might not be enough to go on. For those instances, you need some help from a Web site or two.

I've compiled a helpful list of services that will help you research doctors, and with any luck, pick a good one. Let's take a look.

Find your next doctor

DocBoard: DocBoard might feature one of the worst designs in this roundup, but I found it extremely helpful for those looking to learn more about doctors in their area.

DocBoard features a search tool called DocFinder. When inputting a query, you have the option of searching through the sites listed below the search box. There are a couple dozen state physician board sites listed. If you're looking for doctors somewhere else, you'll find links to the right of DocFinder, sending you to state pages you can't search directly on the site. Since I live in New York, I had to go to my state's respective physician's page to learn about doctors in my area.

But if you live in a state that did make its physician information available to DocBoard, I think you'll like what you find. The site will deliver information on where a doctor graduated medical school, whether or not she's still certified to practice medicine, and more. It's an extremely informative site.

DocFinder gives you useful information on several doctors.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

RateMDs: If you're familiar with RateMyProfessors, a service that allows college students to grade their teachers, you will be right at home with RateMDs.

When you start using RateMDs, you'll need to search by state. From there, you can narrow your search by city, the doctor's specialty, rating, and more. When I searched for doctors in New York, I was quite pleased by what I found. There were several doctors with dozens of reviews from patients who both liked and disliked the physician. RateMDs impressed me even more when I searched in suburban areas. Once again, the site delivered several useful reviews. And thanks to a nice design, you shouldn't have any trouble creating your own reviews.

As with any user-review site, some comments on RateMDs are inexplicably harsh, but for the most part, I think you'll be happy with what you find.

RateMDs features just about anyone you're looking for.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

PowerReviews, a company that provides white-label customer review tools for retailers and brands, is preparing to release a service called BrandConnect.

BrandConnect features two elements: Listener and Megaphone. According to Darby Williams, the vice president of marketing at PowerReviews, "Listener will help brands track and understand what their customers really want out of their products."

Listener
To do so, PowerReviews first asks users to review a product in more detail than they might be accustomed to. According to Williams, the process will first ask consumers what the pros and cons were of a particular product. It then asks them to describe how they use it.

Listener then examines the data gathered from each review and aggregates responses for the client. Williams contends that the tool's statistical data helps deliver actionable content to PowerReviews' clients.

BrandConnect showing reviews in real time.

(Credit: PowerReviews)

Williams said in a phone interview on Wednesday that most companies are averse to negative customer reviews. PowerReviews employs a two-level moderation process. It first analyzes reviews containing "at least one word in the comments and three checked tags" to ensure that no profanity or unnecessary content is included in a respective review. From there, reviews are sent to the client, giving them the option of removing negative reviews or allowing them to stay on the site.

Williams told me that PowerReviews encourages its clients to keep negative reviews in place to maintain credibility, but ultimately, that decision rests with those clients.

Megaphone
BrandConnect will also feature a tool called Megaphone. The company's Megaphone feature gives customers the option to syndicate their reviews to Facebook, Twitter, and their blogs.

BrandConnect showing advocates and detractors.

(Credit: PowerReviews)

While they're writing a review, consumers are notified by Megaphone that they can share it when it's complete. They can either use Facebook Connect or log in to Twitter to syndicate their review to the respective social networks. A snippet of about two sentences will be displayed on Facebook, followed by a link to the review. That same form will be displayed on the user's blog, if they choose to syndicate it there. A message will populate Twitter's input box, giving users the option to introduce their review to followers.

PowerReviews said it believes that it's that social element that could significantly improve its clients' ability to drive traffic to their sites. The company makes BrandConnect available to retailers and brands on Tuesday.

Updated at 12:01 p.m. PDT on September 21 to include information on positive reviews.

Gdgt, a new site co-founded by Peter Rojas (founding editor of both Gizmodo and Engadget) and Ryan Block (former editor in chief of Engadget) is opening up today.

It is--surprise--yet another gadget site, but it's quite good, and more useful to real people than the gadget porn sites these two editors came from. It's a community-driven site, wiki-like in features and general atmosphere, so it's the site's users that will make it succeed or fail.

Meanwhile, the new version of Retrevo (previous coverage), another tech product site, launched on Monday of this week. It's a more sober site, useful but not as exciting as Gdgt. It's more of a buyer's and owner's resource.

Gdgt: By geeks and of geeks

"It's the gadget site we always wanted," Rojas and Block say about their new site. Conceptually, it's quite simple, and potentially powerful. Users on the site pick the products they have, want, or once had, and write up quick reviews of them if they like. It's social, it's fast, and if the product you want to write about isn't in the database, it's pretty easy to add it.

If you're looking for solid advice on a product--how to fix it, if you should buy it--the community could provide value. You'll be able to see what users are saying about products and dive into discussions about particular features. If you like researching what the people who are really passionate about their gear say, this will be helpful.

But the people who get the most out of Gdgt will be product geeks and fanboys who like chatting about toys. The service has a very high social component. You can follow people, friend them, get alerts when your friends write reviews or respond to yours, and so on. There are also free-floating discussions about product companies, and "feature" stories (blog posts) by the editors that will serve as jumping-off points for community chatter.

It sounds like an straightforward concept, but Gdgt wins points for execution. It's fun to use. It's fast (at least the unloaded beta I tried was) and most of the pieces are where you expect them to be. Those that aren't (like the site's preference for using product model numbers instead of more popular brand names) will likely be fixed based on user feedback.

I admit I do have issues with sites that encourage people to define themselves by what they own, and Gdgt definitely does that. There's a tacit game of one-upsmanship in the "I have" list. But if you do have the gadget bug and see no issue with feeding it, I think Gdgt will end up being a great place to hang out.

Gdgt is as much about products as it is about their fans and owners.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

Retrevo: Get in, get info, get out

In contrast, the new, recently launched version of Retrevo is designed to "make the shopping journey simple and enjoyable," an anodyne pitch if ever there was, but attractive, no doubt, to people freaked out by the idea of buying a digicam or a flatscreen.

Retrevo has an AI core that gathers up product review and pricing data from numerous sources (including CNET), to present overall recommendations on products. What's new is its Farecast-like feature of telling you if the product you're looking at is at its peak of popularity, or heading toward or away from it, plus indicators telling whether users like it, and if it's a good value or not at the moment. If you trust the Retrevo machine, it provides good info to reduce buying anxiety.

A new automated "product catalog" also gathers up information on entire categories of products and puts into a catalog-like format that's supposed to be comfortable to users. I found the information on the catalog pages poorly organized, however.

The site will now also telegraph the essentials it knows about products to you via Twitter if you send it a query, which is potentially useful if you're in a store and curious about a product you're looking at on a shelf, and if you don't care if all your Twitter followers see when you query the Retrevobot. Another handy feature (which I don't think is new) is an electronic "shelf" for keeping product manuals. Retrevo has a nice library to stock it from.

This should make it easier for you to part with your money.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

If you're a gearhead, try Gdgt for fun and community, but don't skip Retrevo when you're looking to make a purchase.

And to keep me employed, be sure to check out CNET reviews as well. Thank you.

Disclosure: In past jobs at Red Herring and Ziff-Davis, I have worked with people now at both Gdgt and Retrevo.

New reviews site NextStop made its public debut on Monday after a successful private beta. The site lets anyone write a quick 160-character take on local attractions from around the world. In comparison with other mainstream reviews services like CitySearch and Yelp, this size limitation forces users to keep their rants and raves short and to the point.

In fact, the site is encouraging users to only leave positive reviews, meaning you're not going to run into long, and often entertaining, rants about bad service or a botched entree. There's not even a star-based rating system to be found on NextStop. Instead, every review is expected to be positive, and worth your time.

Writing a review is broken down into three simple steps, and the service holds your hand for the first two. You type in the name and general location of the business or attraction and it does a quick search in the background to find the street number and any local information. Once you've picked the proper place, it then pulls up photos from around the Web that you can add to your review. You're also able to upload them from a URL or from your hard drive.

Writing a new review is a three-step process, and one that takes about a minute from start to finish.

(Credit: CNET)

As for the reviews, 160 characters is quite short. Truth be told, however, you can go over that limit if you have more to say. Similar to Twitter it lets you know how many characters you have, and whatever excess writing you've done simply gets truncated, so other users won't see it until click through to see the entire thing. A major strength of this forced brevity is that adding new reviews is incredibly easy. The few sample ones I did took less than a minute from start to finish.

NextStop's city guides let users quickly arrange a to-do list of local attractions. These can also be printed out and stuffed in your pocket.

(Credit: CNET)

Along with single reviews, users can make customized city guides. These are simply a compilation of spots you've reviewed that can be browsed like a music playlist. It's fairly standard fare for a local reviews site, but NextStop lets you quickly rearrange the order of each stop, as well as print it out on printer-friendly sheet you can stick in your pocket to take with you. You can even write new reviews directly from the guide creator, meaning you can put together a pretty comprehensive walking tour of a local neighborhood in a matter of minutes.

One major component that's currently missing from the site is a mobile application. You can still access the site through your phone's browser, but you don't get niceties like geo-location to find things around you, or the capability to easily access a bookmarked list. I expect this is something that's coming later on, since such an import part of local exploration is doing it while away from a computer.

That aside, NextStop has two big things that will likely keep users coming back for more. One is deep Facebook integration that lets you share your latest reviews in your news feed, and gives you recommendations of people you should be friends with based on similar things you both enjoy. Like Netflix's rating algorithm, this encourages you to review more places, since it can better connect you to like-minded people.

Another aspect is a badge system that rewards heavy users with medals. The more you've added and contributed to the site, the more distinguished a badge you get. Unlike Yelp's Elite system, this doesn't reward writing style as much as it does volume, meaning that it's easy to get higher-level badges if you use the site frequently.

NextStop faces tough competition from giants including Yelp, which recently rolled out its own short reviews service called Quick Tip--something that's not as robust as the company's existing five-star reviews system, but that allows users to do quick, one-off reviews. There's also Diddit, which is focused specifically on lists and checking off items or places where you've been. It too has a robust itinerary manager that lets you quickly create a day trip and get ideas from others.

Where NextStop is really going to have to sell itself is the fact that you can write a review for any place in any city around the world, and that it will learn your tastes to give you suggestions on people you should know and places you should go. Between that and a GPS-enabled mobile phone app, there's a ton of room to grow it into a successful place to bring in advertisers and get people casually writing several reviews a week.

In response to criticism that small business were largely powerless against negative reviews on Yelp, the community reviews site has rolled out a feature that allows business owners to respond to reviews of their establishments, whether good or bad.

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman wrote in a company blog Thursday that the free feature was rolled out Wednesday:

Last night we rolled out a highly anticipated feature that allows business owners to publicly comment on their reviews. Already we've seen a number of sharp-eyed businesses make good use of this new functionality to provide additional context around specific reviews for the benefit of consumers and yelpers alike.

The service was created to give business owners a way to provide constructive feedback in a public forum, instead of the previous system, which required businesses to correspond with users through private messages, Yelp told its " elite users" in an e-mail earlier this month. The feature is expected to help quell some business owners' biggest complaint about the social reviews site--that businesses had few avenues to respond to negative reviews or unfounded claims.

Business owner comments will be given a more stringent review than user comments, and Yelp promises to remove any owner-written comments deemed disparaging, attacking, or pandering with some sort of incentive. The company has put up a guide that clarifies what businesses should and should not do with the new system.

Before business owners can use the comment feature, they must claim ownership of the business at biz.yelp.com, Stoppelman wrote.

The new feature is being introduced in the wake of some business owners resorting to libel lawsuits against former clients. In January, a San Francisco chiropractor filed a lawsuit against a patient who wrote a negative review of him on Yelp, but that suit was quickly settled.

A similar lawsuit soon followed in which a California dentist sued a couple, claiming libel over a negative review posted to Yelp's site. Yelp was named as a defendant in that case, but the plaintiff's attorney indicated at the time that the reviews site would likely be dismissed as a defendant because Web sites are protected against liability for content their users post.

An example of a business owner responding to a negative review on Yelp.

(Credit: Yelp)

Next week, Yelp is set to roll out a new feature that will allow business owners to respond to user reviews--both good and bad--of their establishments.

In an e-mail sent out to the service's "Elite users," one of Yelp's local community managers Don Bourassa said the service is being set up to give business owners a way to provide constructive feedback in a public forum, as the current system requires businesses to correspond with users through private messages.

"The goal is for all comments to be pleasant and useful," Bourassa said. "For example, if you wrote a glowing 5-star review some months ago about your favorite pub, in which you mention drinking Harp because they didn't carry Guinness...both you and other readers would probably be happy to see a new comment saying, 'Just got our Guinness tap last week. Hope to see you soon!'"

To help regulate the system, business owner comments are given an even more stringent policy than its guidelines for user comments. The company has put up a guide that clarifies what businesses should and should not do with the new system. Any owner-written comments that are deemed disparaging, attacking, or pandering with some sort of incentive will be removed by Yelp's staff.

Businesses that want to take part in the program must register with Yelp. This should give business owners a little more incentive to do so, since they'll be able to directly (and publicly) respond to any criticisms. Presumably, these comments will also show up in the service's mobile applications, of which the iPhone version is set to get an update.

More importantly, this program should help quell some business owners' biggest complaints about the social reviews site, which in the past has given businesses very few tools to respond to negative reviews or unfounded claims. A minute amount of editorial control is granted to businesses who pay for advertising on Yelp, however that's limited to selecting a specific user review to go on top of all the others on the page, and to show up as a suggestion on competitor's pages. Under the new program, registered businesses can simply respond to any comments--positive and negative, directly, and have all the other users see it.

See also: Yelp's credibility problem: Blame it on algorithm?

Update: Here's a screenshot of what it will look like, although a representative from Yelp says this is just a mock-up and may look different when the feature launches.

Business replies will appear under user comments if a business has made a reply, however users will need to expand it to see it alongside user reviews. Click on the image to see how it will look when it's nested.

(Credit: Yelp)

Hunch helps you make decisions. For quandaries ranging from "Where should I live?" to "Which blog should I read?" the system plays a question-and-answer game with you, to home in on an answer.

To improve your results, you can also teach the system about yourself by taking a quiz that asks questions like "Would you rather lead or be led?" and "Which 'Sesame Street' character appeals to you?" As you answer these questions, Hunch's algorithm is cataloging your answers and learning more about you.

I started using Hunch after taking the quiz. I asked it which blogs I should read, and whether or not I should switch to a Mac. I'm still not fully sold on Hunch yet, but its results meshed well with decisions I have already made.

For example, I tried the "Should I switch to a Mac" topic to find out if it would tell me to switch to a Mac, three years after I made the decision to do so. Hitch started out asking if my job required me to use Outlook. After answering "no", it asked me if I'm willing to spend more than $1,000 on a computer. I clicked "yes" and then it asked if I would want to engage in computer gaming. I said "no." I answered "no" to the question of whether or not I'm in the design field. It then asked if I make heavy use of Microsoft Excel. I don't, so I clicked "no."

Hunch's design is simple and elegant.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)

After telling the system that I'm comfortable "going under the hood" to change the computer's components, I answered that I would want a portable computer. Next, I was brought to the best question of them all: "Who do you prefer?" The answers were Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, or no preference. After saying that I had no preference, Hunch's decision-making algorithm, which analyzes answers, returned my result: I had a 99 percent fit with a Mac. I should switch from a PC.

On more serious topics like "Which camera should I buy?" I found Hunch to be helpful. It asked thoughtful questions about what I'd like in a camera. It even asked what I'd do with it. After answering the questions, it found that the Nikon D80 was the camera for me. I researched its specs and I have to agree--it's ideal for what I'm looking for in a D-SLR.

I also found the "Which credit card should I get" topic useful. Based on my answers, it returned a card containing much of what I'm looking for: a low interest rate and the option to redeem points from a reputable bank.

Creation
All of Hunch's topics come from users. The site allows you to create topics, provide multiple choice answers, and based on those answers, determine results.

When you create a topic, the service finds images from across the Web to add art to it. That saves some time, but the amount of time you spend adding questions and determining results is ridiculous. And if you create a sophisticated topic with many questions, you'll need to run through answers one-by-one to link them to the topic's results. A topic can take up to an hour to create.

Creating a topic takes too long.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)

The design
Hunch looks good. The most popular and newest topics are there for you to check out on the main page. If you want to find other people on the site and see what they're up to, the "Community" tab has that information. But more importantly, Hunch's simple design makes the site easy to use. You won't have trouble finding desired topics.

Should I use Hunch?
Hunch is fun. At first, you'll probably enjoy browsing through the various topics and maybe even creating some of your own. But after a while, if you're anything like me, you'll gravitate to the more serious topics to help you make decisions. And although there aren't many topics on the site yet, I found that many were relevant to my life. More importantly, they helped me make smarter decisions on important issues, like finances and purchases.

Hunch provides a unique alternative to answers services from Yahoo or Mahalo. And although it's not perfect and it has some growing up to do, it has promise. It could become the "go-to" answer service on the Web with more user involvement.

WebReview is a new extension for Firefox that attempts to make your start page smarter, and more suggestive based on past browsing habits. If you've used Google's Chrome, or have been keeping up with Mozilla's latest efforts to change what users are seeing when they first fire up their browser or open a new tab, the idea behind WebReview is the same.

When you install WebReview in Firefox (which for now is the only browser this extension runs in) it will give you four different sets of links. Like Chrome it will tell you both the last few tabs you had open, along with some of your most visited pages. Where it really shines, however is showing you a grouping of sites you visit daily, along with a suggestion of sites you may be interested in going to. It sorts these out by what day it is, along with the time. So if, for example, you visit a few news blogs every Monday morning it will keep track of that and offer them up as suggestions when you fire up your browser that same time of day.

Users with WebReview installed can see a slew of links when they load up their browser, including their most visited pages, along with suggestions of what they should read based on past browsing history.

(Credit: WebReview)

The add-on provides more than just links though, it's also a secondary history tracker that can be used instead of the one that ships with Firefox. It will track all your browsing history and give you some powerful tools to go through it all including the option to sort by both domain and the number of visits. It also provides a thumbnail view of each page which you can preview before going back for another visit.

If you're not into going through the entirety of your history there's an alternate way to track how you browsed. Called graph view, it shows the breadcrumb trail of how you went from site to site for that entire session. You can also go back to specific days and see a large graph for the entire day. Visually it's very interesting, and exploratory at the same time.

WebReview was created by German developer Andreas Wagner as part of his thesis for University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern/Germany. It's also experimental, so you'll need to be registered with Mozilla's add-ons site to give it a go.