Yelp has come to BA! or... sort of...

[tez]

http://www.znopit.com/

Has anyone seen this site yet?

I am blanking on the proper business term for "blatant copying of a business idea," but I just stumbled upon the above website. If any of you are lovers of yelp.com from back in the states, you'll notice that this site is exactly the same, down to the colors, the "highlights," everything.

They must be new still as there aren't a ton of reviews but they do have plenty of places listed, ready for reviews to be made. That said, some have tons of reviews already, even though I haven't seen this thing advertised anywhere. I still need to dig in deeper, but if it is like yelp we should be able to review everything from restaurants to hairstylists to plumbers and doctors.

I have wished for a site as easy as Yelp so many times I even considered launching one myself (even though I have zero tech knowledge, and I now see I am a few steps behind, as usual!), but I am happy someone has finally done it. I am quite excited.

I'm not sure if I like the name though, "yelp" is such an easy word to make into a verb, but znopit?

So, will you all be znopit-ing? I hope so, as I for one find it very useful!! (as of now it is all in Spanish and I don't see any quick translation links, but the star ratings need no translation at least).

 

[igor]

Well, let's take a look:

baexpats.org
Google PR: 4
Alexa Rating: 178k

znopit.com
Google PR: 2
Alexa Rating: 1,148k

My guess is they have 1/10th of our visitors and 25 reviews about Sanatorio Colegiales.
Wonder where all these reviews are coming from? Prolific reviewers?

 

[French jurist]

http://www.znopit.com/

Has anyone seen this site yet?

I'm not sure if I like the name though, "yelp" is such an easy word to make into a verb, but znopit?
).

Snobit ? ..........

 

[tez]

Yeah, I had the thought that so many reviewers for certain places were either from the znopit (ha! Snobit!) people themselves or their friends, but I admit they have to start somewhere and I would probably start it that way myself. If it were mine, I would put all my reviews in and then send it to all my friends and acquaintances and say, "Please make some reviews!! And then send you your friends and acquaintances!" Which would make for the smaller number of visitors producing a large amount of reviews, and thus the low PR, right?

For all Yelp's controversy, I have always found the site very useful when traveling in the US, no matter what city, for finding anything from hotels, spas, theater, ballet, good beaches, chiropractors, and of course restaurants. One has to scrutinize a bit I suppose, but overall good information can be readily found.

Still the site, if used by many, can be useful, don't you think? I can make reviews about anything I want which can then be searched for, read, and used to make decisions. Of course, as with anything like this, there will be the risk that reviews come from owners themselves, or that the site uses its own popularity to extort business owners (yikes!) but really if the the site is properly monitored I think it could still be a useful tool. I think it will be much more useful to me than, for instance, Trip Advisor, which I rarely find very helpful, even without their controversial nature.

 

[Quinn]

Seems like it might be a good time for the BAexpats peeps to start out own version. Lord knows there are enough reviews in the threads to populate a similar style as these sights.

 

[Quinn]

http://www.znopit.com/

Has anyone seen this site yet?

I am blanking on the proper business term for "blatant copying of a business idea," but I just stumbled upon the above website. If any of you are lovers of yelp.com from back in the states, you'll notice that this site is exactly the same, down to the colors, the "highlights," everything.

They must be new still as there aren't a ton of reviews but they do have plenty of places listed, ready for reviews to be made. That said, some have tons of reviews already, even though I haven't seen this thing advertised anywhere. I still need to dig in deeper, but if it is like yelp we should be able to review everything from restaurants to hairstylists to plumbers and doctors.

I have wished for a site as easy as Yelp so many times I even considered launching one myself (even though I have zero tech knowledge, and I now see I am a few steps behind, as usual!), but I am happy someone has finally done it. I am quite excited.

I'm not sure if I like the name though, "yelp" is such an easy word to make into a verb, but znopit?

So, will you all be znopit-ing? I hope so, as I for one find it very useful!! (as of now it is all in Spanish and I don't see any quick translation links, but the star ratings need no translation at least).

Also worth mentioning, although I'm sure you already know if it, is that there is already a pretty solid directory just like Znopit:

http://www.guiaoleo.com.ar