Oh, The Places You'll Go....Online.
April 6, 2013 10:21 AM
I am wondering what place based websites other people use. What do you use? Why and how do you use it? What is good or bad about it?
I like BestPlaces.net but I am less crazy about city-data.com. In a way this seems counter intuitive because City Data has photos, charts, etc. It seems like it would be the more information dense site. Yet I don't feel like it is as helpful.
I use Google Maps a lot but I find it frustrating and frequently inaccurate in a way which seems especially problematic on foot, probably more so than if you are driving around. I also frequently go to websites of favorite stores or eateries to find a local place to shop or eat or look up store hours. Sometimes those are equally crazymaking for my purposes.
On the one hand, the Internet has been a godsend for figuring out where things are. On the other, I have repeatedly run into situations where the World Wide Web swears blah does not exist and then I trip across it around the corner or, alternately, it swears that yadda does exist but it doesn't really.
I am wondering how other people use the Internet for getting place based information. Are there some really good sites out there and I just did not get the memo? Are there sites you read with just lovely information about certain locals? Are there tricks I just don't know for using the Internet effectively as a wayfinding tool? Do you know of, say, official city sites that are great in some way?
Beam me up Scotty/Mefites!
I like BestPlaces.net but I am less crazy about city-data.com. In a way this seems counter intuitive because City Data has photos, charts, etc. It seems like it would be the more information dense site. Yet I don't feel like it is as helpful.
I use Google Maps a lot but I find it frustrating and frequently inaccurate in a way which seems especially problematic on foot, probably more so than if you are driving around. I also frequently go to websites of favorite stores or eateries to find a local place to shop or eat or look up store hours. Sometimes those are equally crazymaking for my purposes.
On the one hand, the Internet has been a godsend for figuring out where things are. On the other, I have repeatedly run into situations where the World Wide Web swears blah does not exist and then I trip across it around the corner or, alternately, it swears that yadda does exist but it doesn't really.
I am wondering how other people use the Internet for getting place based information. Are there some really good sites out there and I just did not get the memo? Are there sites you read with just lovely information about certain locals? Are there tricks I just don't know for using the Internet effectively as a wayfinding tool? Do you know of, say, official city sites that are great in some way?
Beam me up Scotty/Mefites!
I find urbanspoon, yelp, and google maps to be really useful to find restaurants, with one caveat : ALWAYS call them to double check hours. It's annoying, but not as annoying as driving all the way there and finding out they're closed on Sunday even though Google said they were open.
I used City data forums extensively when we moved, though I find they are better not to answer a specific question (unless you post yourself) but rather to page through all the questions to give you an overall sense of the city.
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:17 AM on April 6, 2013
I used City data forums extensively when we moved, though I find they are better not to answer a specific question (unless you post yourself) but rather to page through all the questions to give you an overall sense of the city.
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:17 AM on April 6, 2013
I do see that you don't like city-data, but then you mention their charts. Have you seen their forums (for example)? I really like the one for my area. I'm also increasingly looking at yelp.com for restaurant reviews, etc., in addition to a few that are Houston-specific (so I assume not useful to you).
posted by Houstonian at 11:18 AM on April 6, 2013
posted by Houstonian at 11:18 AM on April 6, 2013
Also I find googling [city name] city paper will usually find you one of the 'cooler' weekly papers that shows you the cool events, places, etc. in a particular city.
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:20 AM on April 6, 2013
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:20 AM on April 6, 2013
I would, in fact, be interested in seeing Houston specific websites that you like and hearing why you like them.
On the one hand, the question arises out of personal frustration with trying to find stuff IRL. On the other, I have a Certificate in Geographic Information Systems, an incomplete Bachelor of Science in Environmental Resource Management, and derailed career plans to do something urban planning related/built environment related. So I am partly just curious what works in this space, both in terms of websites and personal practices for how to use them.
On a side note, I don't really get the idea of reading restaurant reviews. What do people get out of that? I mean, how is that useful in deciding where to eat? (I have food allergies, etc. And I have trouble wrapping my brain around the written word giving me any real idea how something tastes and whether or not it would make me ill.)
Thanks for the anwers so far.
posted by Michele in California at 11:48 AM on April 6, 2013
On the one hand, the question arises out of personal frustration with trying to find stuff IRL. On the other, I have a Certificate in Geographic Information Systems, an incomplete Bachelor of Science in Environmental Resource Management, and derailed career plans to do something urban planning related/built environment related. So I am partly just curious what works in this space, both in terms of websites and personal practices for how to use them.
On a side note, I don't really get the idea of reading restaurant reviews. What do people get out of that? I mean, how is that useful in deciding where to eat? (I have food allergies, etc. And I have trouble wrapping my brain around the written word giving me any real idea how something tastes and whether or not it would make me ill.)
Thanks for the anwers so far.
posted by Michele in California at 11:48 AM on April 6, 2013
I like Foursquare for this, but you need a smartphone to get the most out of it. I trust it to be more current than other sites like Yelp because the "check-ins" happen in real time and I don't think they filter content the way Yelp does. One drawback is that a lot of the recommendations and events will be skewed toward the kinds of people who tend to use Foursquare. (There are exceptions, but it's mostly city-dwelling younger people with smartphones.)
posted by perryfugue at 12:03 PM on April 6, 2013
posted by perryfugue at 12:03 PM on April 6, 2013
I mean, how is that useful in deciding where to eat?
I filter yelp reviews through a sort of "this person is probably a whiny self centered asshole" filter, but they are useful for things like "is this likely to be a two hour sit down meal or somewhere I can grab dinner quickly? Is this cafe somewhere I can go and read for an hour or is it somewhere I should just go in, order and leave? What time does this bakery start running out of macaroons? Will there be a line? Do they have big tables for a group? What are some cool dishes on the menu?"
posted by jacalata at 12:32 PM on April 6, 2013
I filter yelp reviews through a sort of "this person is probably a whiny self centered asshole" filter, but they are useful for things like "is this likely to be a two hour sit down meal or somewhere I can grab dinner quickly? Is this cafe somewhere I can go and read for an hour or is it somewhere I should just go in, order and leave? What time does this bakery start running out of macaroons? Will there be a line? Do they have big tables for a group? What are some cool dishes on the menu?"
posted by jacalata at 12:32 PM on April 6, 2013
In general, I like Houston-specific websites when they provide me with information I want that is specific to Houston, like events or reviews. I don't read, say, websites about local government or local socialites or whatever.
For your side note about food reviews: I do read restaurant reviews because I find the written word to be persuasive. If the review makes everything about a restaurant sound wonderful, then I'm much more likely to want to go than if they mention the roach problem. But then websites that are only amateur reviews (like yelp.com) add the photo dimension -- nothing is more powerful than a photo of a delicious meal or of a roach. Plus people take photos of menus, which restaurants seem to sometimes think is optional on their own websites. So, yelp.com and similar websites offer frank opinions, photos, menus, and price information. None of that can be found (really, honestly) on other types of websites.
Still speaking of restaurant reviews, the B4-U-EAT website was around much earlier than yelp.com (since 1991), and I still go there. No photos, but really honest opinions about restaurants and their menus. I guess what makes it work is that it is trust-worthy.
For general info about what's going on in my city, I'll look at the Houston Press website. Really, I was looking at the Houston Press long before they had a website -- this is just a carry-over behavior of a habit I established long ago. They have a calendar of events for the week which is nice. They also do an annual "Best of" list, with categories ranging from Best Candy Store to Best Sports Talk Host to Best Wall Art -- pretty silly categories (and they have the usual, non-silly ones too), but kinda just a spotlight on interesting things. Hip people turn their nose up at the Houston Press, but I'm not too hip to enjoy it. Tying this into your area, the Houston Press is one of those weekly rags that you used to see in free newspaper machines all around big cities, with the extensive classifieds in the back and concert listings and whatnot inside. "Alt-weeklies" run by Voice Media Group, and they also own several other similar papers, like the Village Voice, the LA Weekly, the OC Weekly, the San Diego Reader, the Seattle Stranger... in a way they are all kinda the same.
Circling back to the Houston forum for city-data, this is a fantastic place to ask a question. I want a reputable plumber? This is the place. I want to know what they are building on the side of the interstate? I ask and someone who knows answers. Brilliant because it is so very local. I've never had any use for the non-forum parts of that website.
On my igoogle page (which is sadly going the way of Google Reader) I regularly read local websites. For example:
Our poor city paper (we're reduced to one, now) is in shambles but the "blog" section is pretty good (sadly, I suspect these writers are working for free). One nice one is the Bayou City History blog. This guy has access to the old city paper photo archives and he regularly shows old photos to us. Completely awesome.
I gas up the car at least once a week. Gas prices are important to me. The gasbuddy.com website has my back. People log in the latest gas prices at different stations, and I can do a very quick scan every morning to see which local station has the lowest price. I can view the prices on a map, so it is very easy. Lowest price for a gallon of regular unleaded within the last 24 hours within my ZIP code? $3.36. It was that easy. Done! Just like how I used to make a mental note of the cheapest gas while driving around, but now it's at my fingertips.
In a similar vein, I can check the grocery sales for our local (Texas only, I think) grocery stores. I shop at the HEB stores. I go to their website, enter my ZIP code, pick my store, and voilà -- today they will sell me a NY Strip steak for $3.97/lb (about the same price as a gallon of gas!) and minneola tangelos are 77¢ /lb. This, too, is a carry-over behavior. I used to wait for/look at the Wednesday grocery circular that would come in the mail. I don't need that anymore.
And then there are events. I do like to know what the weekend things are, even if they are in a different Texas city. For that, TexasTrippper.com does the job. But they aren't the only ones. I also look at the Houston culturemap and Events.29-95.
I also like to view two calendars. One is for the Houston Aeros, because I do like our local hockey team and I like to watch them play. The other is surprisingly (because local .gov ones are usually crap) the City of Houston calendar, which includes local arts events.
Reddit, being bigger than Metafilter, has very specific sub-groups and there are several for Houston. One is Houston, and another is HoustonEvents. Like the others, they are nice because you can get very specifically local information.
posted by Houstonian at 1:01 PM on April 6, 2013
For your side note about food reviews: I do read restaurant reviews because I find the written word to be persuasive. If the review makes everything about a restaurant sound wonderful, then I'm much more likely to want to go than if they mention the roach problem. But then websites that are only amateur reviews (like yelp.com) add the photo dimension -- nothing is more powerful than a photo of a delicious meal or of a roach. Plus people take photos of menus, which restaurants seem to sometimes think is optional on their own websites. So, yelp.com and similar websites offer frank opinions, photos, menus, and price information. None of that can be found (really, honestly) on other types of websites.
Still speaking of restaurant reviews, the B4-U-EAT website was around much earlier than yelp.com (since 1991), and I still go there. No photos, but really honest opinions about restaurants and their menus. I guess what makes it work is that it is trust-worthy.
For general info about what's going on in my city, I'll look at the Houston Press website. Really, I was looking at the Houston Press long before they had a website -- this is just a carry-over behavior of a habit I established long ago. They have a calendar of events for the week which is nice. They also do an annual "Best of" list, with categories ranging from Best Candy Store to Best Sports Talk Host to Best Wall Art -- pretty silly categories (and they have the usual, non-silly ones too), but kinda just a spotlight on interesting things. Hip people turn their nose up at the Houston Press, but I'm not too hip to enjoy it. Tying this into your area, the Houston Press is one of those weekly rags that you used to see in free newspaper machines all around big cities, with the extensive classifieds in the back and concert listings and whatnot inside. "Alt-weeklies" run by Voice Media Group, and they also own several other similar papers, like the Village Voice, the LA Weekly, the OC Weekly, the San Diego Reader, the Seattle Stranger... in a way they are all kinda the same.
Circling back to the Houston forum for city-data, this is a fantastic place to ask a question. I want a reputable plumber? This is the place. I want to know what they are building on the side of the interstate? I ask and someone who knows answers. Brilliant because it is so very local. I've never had any use for the non-forum parts of that website.
On my igoogle page (which is sadly going the way of Google Reader) I regularly read local websites. For example:
Our poor city paper (we're reduced to one, now) is in shambles but the "blog" section is pretty good (sadly, I suspect these writers are working for free). One nice one is the Bayou City History blog. This guy has access to the old city paper photo archives and he regularly shows old photos to us. Completely awesome.
I gas up the car at least once a week. Gas prices are important to me. The gasbuddy.com website has my back. People log in the latest gas prices at different stations, and I can do a very quick scan every morning to see which local station has the lowest price. I can view the prices on a map, so it is very easy. Lowest price for a gallon of regular unleaded within the last 24 hours within my ZIP code? $3.36. It was that easy. Done! Just like how I used to make a mental note of the cheapest gas while driving around, but now it's at my fingertips.
In a similar vein, I can check the grocery sales for our local (Texas only, I think) grocery stores. I shop at the HEB stores. I go to their website, enter my ZIP code, pick my store, and voilà -- today they will sell me a NY Strip steak for $3.97/lb (about the same price as a gallon of gas!) and minneola tangelos are 77¢ /lb. This, too, is a carry-over behavior. I used to wait for/look at the Wednesday grocery circular that would come in the mail. I don't need that anymore.
And then there are events. I do like to know what the weekend things are, even if they are in a different Texas city. For that, TexasTrippper.com does the job. But they aren't the only ones. I also look at the Houston culturemap and Events.29-95.
I also like to view two calendars. One is for the Houston Aeros, because I do like our local hockey team and I like to watch them play. The other is surprisingly (because local .gov ones are usually crap) the City of Houston calendar, which includes local arts events.
Reddit, being bigger than Metafilter, has very specific sub-groups and there are several for Houston. One is Houston, and another is HoustonEvents. Like the others, they are nice because you can get very specifically local information.
posted by Houstonian at 1:01 PM on April 6, 2013
Not entirely sure what you're looking for, but here's a spectrum of sorts of sites I use that haven't been covered yet:
For beer, I turn to BeerAdvocate which is not great in its layout & usability, but is great in its content sometimes. If I'm in the UK, I may check Qype in addition to Yelp.
In the Netherlands, 9292.nl is a great way to map a route that involves public transportation, across city/province boundaries, and sometimes even across international borders. Good: for registered users, it can remember saved locations, e.g. Home, Work, Mom's House and frequent trips. It also includes many major landmarks. It calculates price. It allows you to include/exclude modes of transportation. Bad: it gets a bit confused sometimes by street/bus-stop names that exist multiple times across the country.
posted by knile at 3:37 PM on April 6, 2013
For beer, I turn to BeerAdvocate which is not great in its layout & usability, but is great in its content sometimes. If I'm in the UK, I may check Qype in addition to Yelp.
In the Netherlands, 9292.nl is a great way to map a route that involves public transportation, across city/province boundaries, and sometimes even across international borders. Good: for registered users, it can remember saved locations, e.g. Home, Work, Mom's House and frequent trips. It also includes many major landmarks. It calculates price. It allows you to include/exclude modes of transportation. Bad: it gets a bit confused sometimes by street/bus-stop names that exist multiple times across the country.
posted by knile at 3:37 PM on April 6, 2013
Honestly, Twitter is great for this kind of thing, at least for Austin. I follow a couple local podcasts/"Things to do in Austin" type sites, so I see the articles/podcasts go up right away and can read them and mentally file the info away for the weekend or whatever.
In terms of restaurant reviews, I follow the crowd. If a place on Yelp has 200 4 to 5 star reviews, it's probably pretty good. On the other hand, if I scan the reviews and people are complaining the service takes forever and the waiters screw up their order (as an aggregate opinion), I know I don't want to eat there. I mean, if I'm looking at a Chinese place, I know I more-or-less like Chinese, but I want to know I'll get the right food and get in and out in a reasonable fashion. It's extremely useful.
For example, I was heading out to Bastrop today and wanted to get lunch either along the way or when I got there. How do I know if there's anyplace worth eating at in a town I've never been to? I pulled up my Yelp app, typed in Lunch in Bastrop, and checked the list. Deli Depot sounded okay, I don't eat seafood so Baxter's on Main was out, but Maxine's Cafe is, by looking at it, diner food served small-town Southern style. Brilliant, my kind of thing. So I went there for lunch and it turned out great, but I don't have serious food allergies to worry about.
It's like apartment reviews. I'm not looking to find out whether the bedroom gets enough sunlight in the morning or the bathroom walls match the bedroom drapes, I'm trying to find out if it's an uninhabitable hovel run by morons with a mold or rat problem. So when I read apartment reviews, they're ALL terrible, but I know not every complex in the city of Austin is a Victorian London hovel, so when there's a 1 star review ranting that dude parked in a fire lane and got towed, I ignore it. However, if there are 6 reviews all complaining the management is terrible, it's safe to say the management is terrible.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 4:42 PM on April 6, 2013
In terms of restaurant reviews, I follow the crowd. If a place on Yelp has 200 4 to 5 star reviews, it's probably pretty good. On the other hand, if I scan the reviews and people are complaining the service takes forever and the waiters screw up their order (as an aggregate opinion), I know I don't want to eat there. I mean, if I'm looking at a Chinese place, I know I more-or-less like Chinese, but I want to know I'll get the right food and get in and out in a reasonable fashion. It's extremely useful.
For example, I was heading out to Bastrop today and wanted to get lunch either along the way or when I got there. How do I know if there's anyplace worth eating at in a town I've never been to? I pulled up my Yelp app, typed in Lunch in Bastrop, and checked the list. Deli Depot sounded okay, I don't eat seafood so Baxter's on Main was out, but Maxine's Cafe is, by looking at it, diner food served small-town Southern style. Brilliant, my kind of thing. So I went there for lunch and it turned out great, but I don't have serious food allergies to worry about.
It's like apartment reviews. I'm not looking to find out whether the bedroom gets enough sunlight in the morning or the bathroom walls match the bedroom drapes, I'm trying to find out if it's an uninhabitable hovel run by morons with a mold or rat problem. So when I read apartment reviews, they're ALL terrible, but I know not every complex in the city of Austin is a Victorian London hovel, so when there's a 1 star review ranting that dude parked in a fire lane and got towed, I ignore it. However, if there are 6 reviews all complaining the management is terrible, it's safe to say the management is terrible.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 4:42 PM on April 6, 2013
I think you're identifying a chronic problem.
You say "place-based," and I think there are really two different things that people might think you mean under that rubric. There are large-scale, national/international sites that offer up information based on your geolocation data, like Urbanspoon, Yelp, Foursquare, Patch etc. These use the same model everywhere but feed local data into it.
And then there are what I would call genuinely place-based websites that are built for and refer to a single place. Blogs like Good Morning Gloucester, for Gloucester, MA, just as an example. They're spotty and irregular but where they're good they're really good.
The general problem is that I think there is such a vast need for the former kind of wide website/app chock full of local data, but the data isn't there, and wherever there is a ton of great local data (like NYC), people don't really bother themselves with keeping the broad-based app informed. There's an inherent "fight" built into this system, and the national-level sites will only be as good as the crowdsourcing they're trying to do unless they actually staff the process.
posted by Miko at 9:00 PM on April 6, 2013
You say "place-based," and I think there are really two different things that people might think you mean under that rubric. There are large-scale, national/international sites that offer up information based on your geolocation data, like Urbanspoon, Yelp, Foursquare, Patch etc. These use the same model everywhere but feed local data into it.
And then there are what I would call genuinely place-based websites that are built for and refer to a single place. Blogs like Good Morning Gloucester, for Gloucester, MA, just as an example. They're spotty and irregular but where they're good they're really good.
The general problem is that I think there is such a vast need for the former kind of wide website/app chock full of local data, but the data isn't there, and wherever there is a ton of great local data (like NYC), people don't really bother themselves with keeping the broad-based app informed. There's an inherent "fight" built into this system, and the national-level sites will only be as good as the crowdsourcing they're trying to do unless they actually staff the process.
posted by Miko at 9:00 PM on April 6, 2013
Thanks Miko.
But I think it's more complex than that. I spent a couple of days searching stuff myself before I posted this question. One piece I tripped across gushingly talked about "...and admission rates are halved shortly before sunset." It is a park I have been to. It closes at sunset, so no real shock that the fee would drop late in the day. But there is no charge for entry. The fee they were referring to is a parking fee.
Most Americans live such car-centered lives they make no distinction between the two things. However, locals walk and bike into this park all the time. And San Diego county, like much of the West Coast, gets a lot of Asian visitors. My understanding is many of them will be used to walking, biking and using mass transit as the norm. So while the description of the fee as an "admission" fee will make no real difference to American travelers, it is misinformation for locals and many foreigners.
So while I am looking specifically at place based information, one bias I am beating my head against is that American culture is very car centered, so much so that this strongly influences the framing of online info. Yet I have lived without a car for about five years. That bias causes a lot of info to be a poor fit for me and I am painfully aware of it. But I don't think it is just me. This county is overall pedestrian-friendly and bike-friendly and has good public transit which gets reasonable ridership. So I am not the only person who is poorly served by this trend.
Not intending this to be a derail. Hopefully it will help clarify what my issue/interest is.
posted by Michele in California at 9:21 PM on April 6, 2013
But I think it's more complex than that. I spent a couple of days searching stuff myself before I posted this question. One piece I tripped across gushingly talked about "...and admission rates are halved shortly before sunset." It is a park I have been to. It closes at sunset, so no real shock that the fee would drop late in the day. But there is no charge for entry. The fee they were referring to is a parking fee.
Most Americans live such car-centered lives they make no distinction between the two things. However, locals walk and bike into this park all the time. And San Diego county, like much of the West Coast, gets a lot of Asian visitors. My understanding is many of them will be used to walking, biking and using mass transit as the norm. So while the description of the fee as an "admission" fee will make no real difference to American travelers, it is misinformation for locals and many foreigners.
So while I am looking specifically at place based information, one bias I am beating my head against is that American culture is very car centered, so much so that this strongly influences the framing of online info. Yet I have lived without a car for about five years. That bias causes a lot of info to be a poor fit for me and I am painfully aware of it. But I don't think it is just me. This county is overall pedestrian-friendly and bike-friendly and has good public transit which gets reasonable ridership. So I am not the only person who is poorly served by this trend.
Not intending this to be a derail. Hopefully it will help clarify what my issue/interest is.
posted by Michele in California at 9:21 PM on April 6, 2013
Actually I'm afraid I'm a little more confused.
You want accurate civic data managed locally? That I think is only going to result from a citizen push for muncipal, publicly funded digital government information. I do hope we're going to get there.
You want an accurate, nationwide, networked, searchable, up-to-date and highly detailed resource that would be specific about something like the halved admission fee late in the day - but for every municipality across the country? It's a great goal but I think we're 20 years or so away from getting that level of saturation.
I work at a place that's an attraction, and I could see how people would get frustrated finding misinformation like that on Yelp or similar sites. But what's our solution? We emphatically cannot correct misinformation across all the data platforms that are out there. We just don't have that manpower and there are actually well over 100 widely used social data aggregation sites - so it's just not feasible for most small-time players to keep up to date. There's a technological solution here which pulls standardized data from databases managed by public attractions and services to a central resource, but it doesn't exist yet.
posted by Miko at 9:34 PM on April 6, 2013
You want accurate civic data managed locally? That I think is only going to result from a citizen push for muncipal, publicly funded digital government information. I do hope we're going to get there.
You want an accurate, nationwide, networked, searchable, up-to-date and highly detailed resource that would be specific about something like the halved admission fee late in the day - but for every municipality across the country? It's a great goal but I think we're 20 years or so away from getting that level of saturation.
I work at a place that's an attraction, and I could see how people would get frustrated finding misinformation like that on Yelp or similar sites. But what's our solution? We emphatically cannot correct misinformation across all the data platforms that are out there. We just don't have that manpower and there are actually well over 100 widely used social data aggregation sites - so it's just not feasible for most small-time players to keep up to date. There's a technological solution here which pulls standardized data from databases managed by public attractions and services to a central resource, but it doesn't exist yet.
posted by Miko at 9:34 PM on April 6, 2013
No, that wasn't what I meant. I thought it would be a good example of how information gets framed in a way which is a problem for a pedestrian but might go unnoticed as an innaccuracy for most Americans. Most Americans would drive there, pay their parking fee and see no distinction between a parking fee and an admission fee. If I believed the article, I would wonder if I was breaking the law to go into the park on foot without paying an entry fee.
I went to the state parks site as well to double check. They talk about an annual park pass. If you read carefully, it is a pass for parking your car, not for admission to any of the parks. As far as I can tell, there are no entry fees, though there can be fees for certain activities.
posted by Michele in California at 9:46 PM on April 6, 2013
I went to the state parks site as well to double check. They talk about an annual park pass. If you read carefully, it is a pass for parking your car, not for admission to any of the parks. As far as I can tell, there are no entry fees, though there can be fees for certain activities.
posted by Michele in California at 9:46 PM on April 6, 2013
For that kind of pragmatic information (opening hours, cost of admission, etc) I tend to go with Yelp. If in doubt, I'll use Yelp's listings to get the phone number and call to confirm.
I also have a physical guidebook to my city with most of the popular tourist attractions, their hours, admission prices, contact info, etc. if for some reason I can't get someone on the phone. Every once in a while they will be wrong about something, but usually not in a day-ruining sort of way. And, again, they usually provide phone numbers and website urls.
I don't know that there's a real need to aggregate information on the level you're looking for, on a third party website, such that everyone on the planet can understand the nuances, just in case. Between Yelp, the business itself, miscellaneous web stuff, guidebooks, and other resources I think most people are able to get the information they need.
posted by Sara C. at 9:55 PM on April 6, 2013
I also have a physical guidebook to my city with most of the popular tourist attractions, their hours, admission prices, contact info, etc. if for some reason I can't get someone on the phone. Every once in a while they will be wrong about something, but usually not in a day-ruining sort of way. And, again, they usually provide phone numbers and website urls.
I don't know that there's a real need to aggregate information on the level you're looking for, on a third party website, such that everyone on the planet can understand the nuances, just in case. Between Yelp, the business itself, miscellaneous web stuff, guidebooks, and other resources I think most people are able to get the information they need.
posted by Sara C. at 9:55 PM on April 6, 2013
A friend of a friend is working on this exact problem: CitySeed
posted by snoogles at 2:21 AM on April 7, 2013
posted by snoogles at 2:21 AM on April 7, 2013
TripAdvisor is a useful site for hotel reviews.
A huge inherent problem with user-generated rating and review sites like Yelp is the existence of various types of dishonest reviews and how they are handled. Yelp uses an algorithm to filter out what it thinks are dishonest reviews (scroll to the bottom of the reviews for any establishment and you'll notice it says in parenthese x number of reviews "filtered"). There are two big problems with this automated and unverified approach: some honest reviews get filtered (it's happened to me), and some dishonest reviews presumably don't get filtered. Overall ratings are only based on unfiltered reviews. So no matter how you look at it, the information is somewhat inaccurate. However, many people (including myself) obviously still find it useful.
posted by Dansaman at 2:59 AM on April 7, 2013
A huge inherent problem with user-generated rating and review sites like Yelp is the existence of various types of dishonest reviews and how they are handled. Yelp uses an algorithm to filter out what it thinks are dishonest reviews (scroll to the bottom of the reviews for any establishment and you'll notice it says in parenthese x number of reviews "filtered"). There are two big problems with this automated and unverified approach: some honest reviews get filtered (it's happened to me), and some dishonest reviews presumably don't get filtered. Overall ratings are only based on unfiltered reviews. So no matter how you look at it, the information is somewhat inaccurate. However, many people (including myself) obviously still find it useful.
posted by Dansaman at 2:59 AM on April 7, 2013
FWIW I rarely use Yelp for reviews, at least not of the "is the restaurant a good restaurant" sort of reviews. I use it as a sort of powerful yellow pages. What kind of business is this? Where are they located? What are their opening hours? What's a ballpark price range? Do they take credit cards? What else is nearby? Do they seem to be pretty popular with people, or has nobody ever heard of them?
I also love that the mobile app is integrated with my phone's map app, so I can look up a business by name on Yelp and then send that data to the gps for turn by turn directions, within about two clicks. So I can get from "where are some dog parks in the LA area" to "give me directions to this specific dog park" very quickly.
The reviews are mostly beside the point.
posted by Sara C. at 7:30 AM on April 7, 2013
I also love that the mobile app is integrated with my phone's map app, so I can look up a business by name on Yelp and then send that data to the gps for turn by turn directions, within about two clicks. So I can get from "where are some dog parks in the LA area" to "give me directions to this specific dog park" very quickly.
The reviews are mostly beside the point.
posted by Sara C. at 7:30 AM on April 7, 2013
Yeah, I agree with Sara C. I think the best place to find the most accurate and up-to-date information about any place is going to be the group responsible for running the place itself, not a third-party site.
posted by Miko at 7:35 AM on April 7, 2013
posted by Miko at 7:35 AM on April 7, 2013
Eh, this seems to have died. I will mark it resolved. I spent quite a lot of time visiting some of the sites listed and also reading up on Foursquare, which makes me uncomfortable. Paranoid military father. Paranoid military ex. I am weirded out by the idea of "checking in" on Foursquare. That just screams "please stalk me" to me. But I am wondering if I could do it anonymously or something to try it out.
Thanks for the feedback . Don't hesitate to memail me enlightment about Foursquare or whatever.
posted by Michele in California at 7:52 PM on April 9, 2013
Thanks for the feedback . Don't hesitate to memail me enlightment about Foursquare or whatever.
posted by Michele in California at 7:52 PM on April 9, 2013
You can limit your viewability on Foursquare to no one at all or only friends who you know and trust, and still have access to all the local data and leave your own tips.
posted by Miko at 7:55 PM on April 9, 2013
posted by Miko at 7:55 PM on April 9, 2013
« Older Best simple way to move something 6 inches... | A hop, skip and a jump to Grand Central and just... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
Now that I live in Los Angeles I find that there isn't as much of this sort of thing. There's The Eastsider, but it's slick and corporate and is more about real estate prices than anything interesting (and covers a HUGE swath of the city, not a neighborhood). Gothamist's counterpart, LAist, seems to mostly be celebrity gossip and general Buzzfeed-esque clickbait content that doesn't pertain to Los Angeles at all. Sometimes they'll throw in "10 places to get breakfast in the Valley" or a thing about that whole Chris Doerner debacle, but otherwise only tangentially about Los Angeles at all.
posted by Sara C. at 10:47 AM on April 6, 2013