THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAS
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NEWS MANAGEMENT Editor-in-chief Brian Hillis
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ADVISERS Sales and marketing adviser Jon Schitt
The University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is paid through the student activity fee. Additional copies of the Kansan are 50 cents. Subscriptions can be purchased at the Kansan business office, 2015A1 Dale Human Development Center. 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS, 66045.
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Yelp's effect on business hard to gauge
KATE HARTLAND
@katschats77
Scrolling through Yelp, Deb Tagtalianidis may not stop to read every positive review, but the negative ones usually catch her eye.
Customers eat on the patio of the Mad Greek restaurant at 907 Massachusetts St. The owner of Mad Greek, Deb Tagtalianidis, says she reads the reviews customers leave for her restaurant on Yelp.
KATHERINE HARTLAND/KANSAS
tagtalianidis has co-owned the Mad Greek restaurant at 907 Massachusetts St. with her husband for a year now, though the establishment has been in place since 1988. As a new owner, Tagtalianidis said she reads the reviews that customers write about the Mad Greek on Yelp.com.
"It drives me crazy to read the Yelp reviews because I think sometimes people are just looking for a way to be mean," she said.
Yelp was "founded in 2004 to help people find great local businesses," according to the website.
Positive reviews on Yelp have the power to increase a business's yearly revenue. Owners and managers find it difficult to measure the potential monetary gain, but are much more emotionally affected by negative reviews.
Yelp gives power to consumers, but those interviewed did not feel the same potential for influence from their end. Consumers create profiles for businesses regardless of whether the business wants to be on the website or not. Negative reviews will not be removed, but untrue reviews can be flagged.
The effect reviews and ratings can have on independent businesses is substantial, according to a study conducted by a Harvard Business School assistant professor. The study showed that a one-star increase on Yelp leads to a 5 to 9 percent
increase in revenue each year.
Amy Savoie, general manager of Wheatfields Bakery Cafe, said there is no way to tell if the restaurant has seen an increase or decrease in revenue because of Yelp reviews. She said she could count how many people call for directions or store hours, but not how many people come to eat because of reviews they read on Yelp.
According to figures from the Digital Marketing Ramblings website, 26,380 Yelp reviews are posted online every minute. The article also says that the growth in Yelp reviews from 2013-14 was 41 percent.
Business owners and managers may find aspects of Yelp irritating, but the numbers prove that consumers use the website regularly and it does not appear that will change anytime soon.
The general manager of Zen Zero, Brett Showalter, also said there is no way to gauge the monetary gain attributed to customers who checked the restaurant's Yelp page. He said that although it's not the same thing, the restaurant has used Groupon, a coupon app, and could see the actual number of customers it brought in.
"With Groupon, there's numbers. There's no numbers with Yelp." Showalter said.
Tagtalianidis has good reason to keep track of this past year's revenue, but she couldn't say whether it has been affected by the Mad Greek's Yelp rating (which is currently 3.5 out of 5 stars). She said the reviews, of which the Mad Greek has 74, vary so drastically from one to five stars that she has no idea the difference they make.
"Our business has been up,
Negative Yelp reviews can catch a reader's attention, but some are so laughable that they are becoming a viral hit. An actor created a YouTube series called "Real Actors Read Yelp Reviews" that is intended to highlight the ridiculousness of some pessimistic reviews.
but do I attribute that to Yelp? Not really," Tagtalianidis said.
Although unfavorable reviews concern management, what may be more frustrating are comments that falsely describe businesses.
Tagtalianidis said she once read a review that was wrong on multiple accounts, so much so that she wasn't even sure if the reviewer was talking about the right restaurant.
The Yelp website warns businesses that "responding to criticism with criticism of your own will almost always work against you." It is this onesidedness that business owners and managers find irritating.
Showalter said he checks Yelp when looking for a place to eat in a new city. Business
with less than three stars won't receive his patronage. But as the manager of a local restaurant, he sees one of Yelp's faults as the inability to respond directly to customers who write negative or untrue reviews.
"On Yelp, anybody can say whatever they want," Showalter said. He said it is easier to apologize or explain a situation to a customer when they contact the restaurant directly.
- Edited by Emma LeGault
STATE FROM PAGE 1
crats filed a complaint."
THAD ALLTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
crass held a complaint.
The committee, if it decides to move forward, could expel Winn from the House,
give her a citation or just reprimand her. Either way, the final decision will need a two-thirds vote of the House.
Whiple said because he hasn't spoken to fellow committee members about their feelings, he can't predict where they stand.
Members of the House Select Investigative Committee held their initial meeting in regards to Rep. Valdenia Winn, D-Kansas City on April 1.
"The upcoming meeting will decide if we have an investigation or not," Whipple said. "I haven't talked to any of the members to see what they think."
Alcala also preferred not to speculate on the outcome, and said he'd prefer to stick to the facts.
"They can't cite a violation they're having a hearing for," he said. "The other facts are there were two objections, and not once did the chair abstain or overrule, those are the facts. Do I think she's falsely accused? Yes. Do I think the people who filed the complaint are thin-skinned? Yes. Do I think their feelings are really hurt? That's something they'll have to answer for themselves."
While he said everything in the legislature is obviously political, this instance is a different kind of politics.
"I would think if it gets pushed out of committee
with some kind of reprimand it becomes attack politics," he said. "I think that everything is political, but this seems to be a single attack on Rep. Dr. Winn."
Citing hurt feelings as a reason for the complaint, Alcala said there are more important things to deal with in the legislature than a representative using her First Amendment rights and legislative immunity that happened to step on the wrong toes.
"This shows how things get tangled up in political webs at the Capitol," he said. "We have more important things to deal with than people getting their feelings hurt to tie up time and money in the House. If you look at legislative immunity, that statute, it gives you the freedom to cast your opinion without any recourse."
This isn't the first time this bill has caused controversy. In 2013, Secretary of State Kris Kobach pushed the same
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When the Huffington Post ran the story with her statement, she received death threats, was harassed and was called nearly every name in the book. As this new round of controversy launches into full swing, Alcala said the accusations against Winn are "bogus."
"People got mad and they didn't know how to address their anger other than to file a complaint that is bogus according to the rules," Alcala said. "Rep. Dr. Winn is very outspoken. She says what she thinks, and she represents her people well. They just don't like that."
bill. During the hearing, Rep. Ponka-We Victors (D-Wichita), the first Native American woman elected to the Kansas Legislature, told Kobach, "I think it's funny, Mr. Kobach, because when you mention illegal immigrants, I think of all of you."
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means of transportation through facility development, educational programs, and progressive governmental policy, with the ultimate goal of connecting Lawrence and Douglas County's areas and neighborhoods, improving quality of life, and meeting transportation and recreation needs."
BIKING FROM PAGE 1
In 2014, Lawrence created a bike lane along Ninth Street from Avalon Road to Vermont Street, a busy residential area that Dittemore said he uses to make Jimmy John's deliveries on his bike almost every day.
Shelby Lemon, president of Bike KU, said she's glad Lawrence has the non-profit organization Lawrence Unchained. Lawrence Unchained is a part of a movement "to get people on bikes by creating spaces where old bikes can be rehabilitated," according to its website. Its goal is to teach cyclists how to stay safe and maintain their bikes.
Douglas County has about 69 miles of bike routes — which are roads or highways with signs alerting drivers to cyclists
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— with paved shoulders, according to the Countywide Bikeway System Plan. However, Dittimore, Lemon and Krishtalka said Lawrence has a lot of bike routes but not enough bike lanes because of its narrow roads.
AARON DITTEMORE
Lawrence resident
"But overall, I think the city is doing a really good job, and they promote cycling." Dittemore said. "A lot of people here move here and never really thought of cycling as a form of transportation, but then they see so many other people doing it and it kind of catches on."
"I definitely think that Lawrence is biker-friendly, and that's one of the things I really love about it."
Edited by Emma LeGault
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