How a “Billion Dollar Bully” May Finally Pay for its Dirty Tactics

Starting, maintaining, and growing a business is no easy task. It is even more difficult when you face a bully which happens to be a much larger, better-known business threatening you to use their service or face destruction for refusing them. Nonetheless, this has been the case for many businesses, from very large corporations to tiny businesses struggling to make rent month to month to every type of business in between. This is because of an online company utilizing a rating system of individual user reviews to leverage businesses, ultimately, to believe they require its services or they will suffer. The company responsible for this behavior and for the subsequent difficulties of many businesses as a result? Yelp, a name with which anyone who has searched for a business on the Internet or knows anything about online reviewing is familiar. Many have found its services helpful since its founding in 2004, and it does seem like a good thing. When a business model like Yelp’s becomes abusive and resorts to bullying to make money from businesses who need to have a positive presence online, though, things can go very bad quickly. This is, in fact, exactly what has happened in the fifteen years Yelp has been operating online. Read more »

Apartment hunters have always had to be wary about the properties they visit when looking for a place to rent.  While somewhere may seem perfect on the surface, there are numerous cases of bad landlords and neighbors making life difficult for renters.  While once can evaluate the quality of a living space without much trouble, it’s not possible to judge a landlord or property management company after one or two meetings with them.  It’s also impossible to know if they people you live next to will respect your needs and preferences as a neighbor.  Cool person in technology Eric Wolfe is helping people avoid these problems with his company Swapt.  Swapt is a website where renters can review places to live in cities from across the United States.  In many ways, Wolfe’s service is essentially a Yelp!-style site for apartment buildings and rental properties.  Users can leave detailed reviews and rate the places that they have lived in order to help others make informed decisions about where they want to rent.  Anyone who experiences technical problems while going on this cool person’s site and trying to leave a review may require home tech support services. Read more »