With the amount of cash GOOG has, and the droppping costs of hardware, they can take an AOL approach if they so choose. Instead of free CD's, they could distribute free computers.
Load them up with Goog default search and all sorts of reconnaisance functionality to enable them to deliver more enticement to advetisers.
It's like signing up for AOL. It's hard for people to drop it after they've gotten used to it. Could people get used to free computers? I think so.
Yelp needs negative reviews. This is not a site comprised of people with impeccable taste that can rival any restaurant critic or ones's own sense for restaurant choices, based on experience, or word-of-mouth (spoken word). This is yet another way to use the negativity of the web (XYZcompanysucks.com) as a form of blackmail. What a joke. The company that needs to be "outed" is Yelp. If all the accounts are true, these guys are crooks.
Anyone who bases all their dining decisions on what people post to sites like Yelp is not going to have as rich an experience as people who mastered the "old ways" (i.e. personal knowledge not acquired online). Why? Because Yelp is _primarily_ for people who want to complain. And _primarily_ for people who have no taste or worldly experience but who want to post things to the web (tech savvy). There are exceptions, but c'mon, let's be real. The web is the ultimate gripe channel.
Don't believe me? Try basing all your decisions on Yelp. You will not eat as well the the guy who has a sincere interest in restaurants and understands how to use the "old ways". There's certainly potential for such knowledgeable people to come together at a site and produce something amazing: balanced, informative, _informed_ reviews. The web is an amazing instrument for information excehange. But Yelp is not such a site. Their "business" relies lots of complainers who usually (have tech savvy but) have no taste, and on the restaurateur's fear of a fool with a megaphone.
With the amount of cash GOOG has, and the droppping costs of hardware, they can take an AOL approach if they so choose. Instead of free CD's, they could distribute free computers. Load them up with Goog default search and all sorts of reconnaisance functionality to enable them to deliver more enticement to advetisers.
It's like signing up for AOL. It's hard for people to drop it after they've gotten used to it. Could people get used to free computers? I think so.