Tonight on the local CBS affiliate’s crack I-Team, Yelp was profiled, or more accurately, skewered [unfortunately video was not posted], by Jeanette Pavini, KPIX’s own ConsumerWatch I-Team type. Granted 1) this news segment has a strong pro-consumer bias (and perhaps that’s a good thing), 2) small business owners were portrayed as victimized by the evil, capitalist-breeding Yelp empire, and 3) Yelp did have a (brief) response during the segment, the reporting didn’t clearly sketch out that Yelp, in fact, makes money by selling premium advertising to these same businesses.

From the text summary of the story:

So she paid for five months, a total of $1750. Seaton said some of her negative reviews were moved to the bottom. But, Seaton said, “All of a sudden some more negative reviews got posted, but there were no favorable or positive reviews.”

So she canceled [her Yelp sponsorship]. “I feel like they are extorting money and preying basically on business owners,” said Seaton.

It’s not clear what’s more sad: that Seaton (and other business owners featured in the segment) appear as helpless, naive and unknowing in the ways of the world or that if this is the state of consumer awareness (in San Francisco, no less), it will be helluva long time before Main Street catches on to this whole Internets thing.

Preemptive clarification: The “helpless, naive and unknowing in the ways of the world” quote stands in  contrast with the myriad forms of marketing and advertising that have been employed for many decades (yellow pages, newspapers, broadcast, direct mail). Further, the story did not speak to the benefits of advertising on Yelp (or other local search sites): increased awareness, leads, closed business, etc..