Yelp is joining almost every other site on the internet by giving you a feed to scroll through until you can’t scroll no more. Yelp says this feature will be showing up on its users’ homepages in almost 150 US metro areas starting today, and that the feed will feature “visual content from local restaurants,” including photos from other Yelpers, posts from restaurant owners, and some popular dishes being served in your area.
Yelp says in its press release that a few things could happen when you tap on one of the posts in the feed. If the post is a picture of a popular dish (which are meals that pop up a lot in the restaurant’s reviews), you’ll see more photos of it, along with some reviews so you can tell if it’s really as good as it looks. If the photo you tapped on is a picture of the restaurant instead of food, you’ll be taken to its business page to see more information.
Of course, the feed isn’t just showing you popular pictures based on what restaurants are close by and what Yelpers are posting about — Yelp has a paid feature called Connect where restaurants can make posts that update potential customers about things like new menu items, deals, and events. Before, the posts would show up on the business’ page, but now they’ll appear in the feed as well (marked as “sponsored,” of course). So amid the pictures of food, you may see a local bar telling you about its upcoming happy hour.
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Personally, I feel like I’ll get more out of scrolling Yelp’s feed than, say, Instagram or Twitter’s. While I’m not sure updates from restaurants will be exciting to look at, taking a minute to scroll through pictures of local foods taken by fellow reviewers could genuinely help me figure out what I want to eat for dinner. And, unlike scrolling through Netflix’s offerings for an hour before giving up and going to sleep, hunger is generally compelling enough for you to stop scrolling at some point and say, “Yeah, that’ll do.”
