Yelp Allows Businesses Responses to Reviews

Yelp, a San Francisco-based review website, has opened up their website, allowing businesses to respond to reviewers for the first time. This could be a good thing – but could also lead to a lot of “he said she said” nonsense, according to critics.

Last year, Yelp began allowing business owners the ability to privately message users, but now they can publicly post their reactions. Yelp co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman say that they hope the site an still be inviting to users, encouraging open and true reviews.

“We are very cognizant about making sure that Yelp remains a place for users to talk about businesses candidly and openly with each other. Although we recognize the need for business owners to provide some additional context in certain situations, we also need to make sure we do that in a thoughtful way.”

Some say, though, that this will make the site even better, as users will now get both sides of the story.

Image via Flickr.