One of the major problems with Yelp and other services is that people review different things about every experience, yet each place only has a single rating.
People, not being professional reviews, don't approach reviews like one, and are prone to attach different meanings to the star rating. For example, restaurants: On Yelp, people will frequently give a one-star rating due to due waiters, loud guests, wrong food delivered by accident, slow door-to-door delivery, lack of accomodation for some primadonna request, imagined slights, etc. — "...but the food was great!". Such star ratings are nonsensical.
Zagat (when they existed in their original form) had the good sense to distinguish between different aspects of a business. I can accept rude or indifferent service or a poor atmosphere if the food is legendary, for example.
youtube videos are mostly garbage. But if you take the time to look for the good ones, they are much better than what's on TV.
yelp reviews are mostly garbage. But if you take the time to look for well written ones and base your decision only on those, they are much better than a probably-also-paid-for-zagat review.
going further, news site with user generated content, like reddit, are usually garbage. But there it doesn't matter if you look enough, it will still be garbage, and cats :)
People, not being professional reviews, don't approach reviews like one, and are prone to attach different meanings to the star rating. For example, restaurants: On Yelp, people will frequently give a one-star rating due to due waiters, loud guests, wrong food delivered by accident, slow door-to-door delivery, lack of accomodation for some primadonna request, imagined slights, etc. — "...but the food was great!". Such star ratings are nonsensical.
Zagat (when they existed in their original form) had the good sense to distinguish between different aspects of a business. I can accept rude or indifferent service or a poor atmosphere if the food is legendary, for example.