Yelp Help

Yelp—the user-generated business rating site—aint just for restaurants and bars anymore. I just used the website to find a CPA to help me figure out my increasingly-complicated taxes. Yesterday, I used it to find someone to sharpen my knives. Last week, I used Yelp to find a plumber for a leaking toilet, and before that I used it to locate a cheap dog-sitter.

I've started treating the service like a secretary, and have begun relying on the wisdom of the masses to point me in the right direction. So far, the ratings and comments of users haven't disappointed. Sure, some of the business owners with high ratings are using their friends to cook Yelp's books, but they're worried enough about their score to go out of their way for someone (like me!) who tells them that he's a Yelp user.

For right now, the site is most useful in, well, San Francisco, and in other cities the clunkier CitySearch still dominates. But I could see Yelp catching on nationally very quickly. And as Rick mentions, business-owners should see its importance for them as well. Managing your entry and your ratings means that you'll have folks like me beating down your door.