Musing and Gadgets

Two stories caught my eye recently, one involving Yelp and the other involving Engadget. The thing they had in common was the power of social media. In the Yelp case the misuse may have been more a matter of perception then reality, but it is still shows the power that social media holds in today's world.

Yelp is application/site that allows users to write reviews on a business that they go to. There was a story in .Inc magazine about a book store owner who got upset over a negative review that was written about her business. The confrontation between her and the poster of the review escalated to the point were police became involved. Let's say her reaction to the review was a bit overboard, by most normal standards. A good review of the story can be found on True/Slant in an article called "Don't Fear the Yelper". Whether her reaction to the criticism was normal or way out of line, may depend on the eye of the beholder. The fact she believed that the Yelp review would do damage to her store's reputation, clearly shows Yelp's and in turn social media's power. This is especially true for small business owners who depend on word of month.

The Engadget story involves Trolls and comments. Trolls are users who post inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community. Due to the fact that the trolls had gotten out of control, Engadget temporarily turned off the ability to comment. ( This ability has since been turned back on) There is no question that trolls are a major problem for sites like Engadget. Users who are often anonymous are more willing to say things on line that they would never think of saying in the real world. Some have criticized Engadget for not policing their comments to begin with. Many sites will only allow comments to post after they have gone through a review process. This however can lead to the perception that critical comments are being filter out, just because they are critical.

Clearly both of the stories show, that there has been a shift in power and control, when it comes to business and consumers. Even just five years ago if you didn't like your experience with a business or what a publication wrote your recourse was limited. You would probably complain to your friends and family. You may have written a letter to the editor or the local newspaper, but other than that there wasn't much you could do. Now with social media sites like Yelp, Twitter and others, comments both positive and negative can be read by people around the world. A bad comment that goes viral can do immense damage to a companies reputation and bottom line. This shift is something both the consumer and business have to learn to deal with. Consumers need to understand that critics they write and post in social media have consequences and shouldn't be done on a whim. Business need to see criticism as a beacon, highlighting a problem that needs to be fix and not a personal attack.