Although Yelp may seem like it has been around forever, it still helps millions of people find the best places to eat. The company has now launched a vertical home feed with images of dishes and other information, which is intended to help users find local restaurants.
Yelp stated that the feed will feature first and foremost "popular dishes and trending photos from consumers including food photos and interior shots of restaurants." Similar to Google and other news feeds, content is selected based on proximity to the business, freshness and popularity of the dish.
Clicking on the dish will take you to more photos and reviews. Yelp uses machine-learning to identify the best dishes based upon reviews. Then, they pair them with photos and reviews. Clicking on images such as the exterior or interior of a restaurant will take you to its business page, which will show you more information and photos.
Yelp Connect is another paid feature that restaurant owners can use. It allows businesses to update customers and share them directly to their home feed. This will increase visibility for the posts, which in turn will bring Yelp more advertising revenue. Yelp stated that initial testing indicated that the technology could increase restaurant customer engagement by up to 30%.
Yelp announced that the new iOS experience will be available today in 150 cities across 25 US states. The company did not yet release an Android version, but said that it would "stay tuned" for more updates.
Editor's Note: This article first appeared on Engadget.
