

Former MunchOnMe Team Launches Caviar, A Curated Seamless - jwang815
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/20/former-munchonme-team-launches-caviar-a-curated-seamless/

======
fruchtose
> With its focus on curation, Caviar limits its inventory to restaurants that
> have four stars or higher on Yelp.

Frankly, I believe that this is a security risk for companies that want to
integrate with Caviar. Since this criteria is outside the control of Caviar,
it is possible to game the system.

Here's a scenario: Alice opens a new swanky restaurant. A few hipsters come by
and give Alice's restaurant a 4-star average on Yelp. Alice asks Caviar if she
can integrate with them. Meanwhile, Bob has another restaurant that competes
with Alice's. Realizing that his business is vulnerable, he buys a few
negative reviews of Alice's restaurant on Yelp. Because she had few ratings to
begin with, and because Yelp believes the reviews to be real, her rating drops
to 3 stars. Now Caviar won't let Alice use their service.

How will Caviar prevent this scenario from happening? Why not act like Steve
Jobs and say, "This restaurant can use our service because I said so?"

~~~
anandkulkarni
Seems pretty easy. Only admit restaurants with over 100 reviews to ensure
quality. Once restaurants are integrated, they stay integrated. I'm sure it's
not being flipped on and off by an algorithm. Curation means someone's picking
out these restaurants by hand to make sure they're great :)

