Yelp has had the good fortune to have so many reviews in some cities it creates a new challenge for readers/users: making sense of all of them. This is one of the points made by GoodRec founder Mihir Shah: people want quick recommendations, they don’t want to wade through tons of lengthy narratives. (I would say people want a snaptshot but also the capacity to drill down in some cases.)
Yelp had review summaries that showed the concentration of reviews and trendlines, which was very helpful — and more helpful actually than a pure composite star rating. Now Yelp has introduced what it calls “Review Snapshots,” a “box” of at-a-glance information to give people a quick way to evaluate a business.
Here’s one for the SF restaurant Foreign Cinema:
Screenwerk 
October 7, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I only discovered the ratings Details link a couple of months ago but I find it very useful. I’m glad they have made it more explicit vs hiding it behind a link that is hard to notice. The trend is very useful too. I hope users know to click on that Trend toggle.
October 13, 2008 at 3:29 am
Yelp definitely serves a purpose but I think local businesses need a website where they can counter user comments. Seems like an area that will garner some attention sometime down the road with websites like jippidy.com. Yelp is a great product but the local gains is just getting started and I would bet even with a slow economy were going to see some exciting apps.