This is something that Yelp should have done three years ago but better late . . . The company formally announced the members of the Yelp Small Business Advisory Council last week:
- Jeff Diamond, Farmstead Wines & Cheeses (Alameda, CA / Montclair Village, CA)
- Tim Gorin, MyEyeDr, (37 locations throughout Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC)
- Ashley Hankins, Salon Ami (Scottsdale, AZ)
- Jay Hariz, Bridal Rings Company (Los Angeles, CA)
- Gina Higgins, The Irish Times (South Miami, FL)
- Kurt Huffman, Pok Pok / Ping / Foster Burger / Gruner / Whiskey Soda Lounge (Portland, OR)
- Adam Saxton, Pinkberry (Dallas / Arlington, TX)
- Jay Sofer, Lockbusters (New York, NY)
- Keniey Sonley, Saj Mediterranean Grill (Cenntenial, CO)
- Joel Spainhour, Tucker Pup’s Dog Activity Center (Chicago, IL)
Yelp selected these folks from a reported 700 applications submitted. This is what they’ll be doing:
- A trip to Yelp HQ in San Francisco, CA for meetings with Yelp’s executive team.
- Participation in a monthly conference call that will provide early access to product and business updates, as well as the opportunity to offer feedback on features under development.
- Ongoing meetings with Yelp’s individual business units to provide valuable input on existing features and policies and act as a sounding board for those in development.
- Serve as a resource for other business owners who have questions about the services and tools on Yelp.
This is a very smart idea for all sorts of reasons: word of mouth, product development and so on.
Screenwerk 
May 17, 2010 at 1:16 pm
And it got you to blog about them in a positive light 😀
Seriously though, I agree with you that it’s a smart idea.
I was interested by and glad to see the diverse set of businesses both geo and vertical. It would be awesome of they would start doing a video / audio recap with the board members after each meeting.
I think it would help a lot for other businesses who may be skeptical to hear from their own what’s going on.
Will
May 17, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I’m sure lots of interesting things will come out of this.
May 31, 2010 at 8:24 pm
[…] am very glad that Yelp had established its Small Business Advisory Council. I think this will only be good for the site in the long run. It also addresses and redresses the […]