Yelp: Facebook Connect Done Right

I wrote about Facebook Connect last week, in terms of what the platform needs from brands and developers in order to succeed. I skipped right over what this platform actually looks like in practice, so I’ll take a step back and do that now.

I discovered that Yelp was Facebook Connect-enabled completely by accident. I use Yelp all the time for restaurant and business reviews, but rarely write reviews myself (I guess I’m a freeloader). I wrote one last week for the best tailor in Greater Boston, and was pleasantly surprised when a Facebook Connect dialogue box popped up in the bottom right-hand corner of my screen.

This instance of Facebook Connect was executed flawlessly — subtle and completely opt-in. If I hadn’t noticed this option to publish my review to my Facebook mini-feed, I could have gone on browsing around Yelp like I usually do. Back in Facebook, here’s what showed up in my mini-feed for my 500+ friends to see:

So this is what Facebook Connect looks like in action. Here’s why it works for Yelp:

It’s discreet. This isn’t an in-your-face dialogue that takes over your screen. If you don’t notice it or choose to ignore it, no harm done.
It’s optional. It’s not an “extra step” in the process of quickly submitting a review to Yelp.
I didn’t need to log in to Facebook again. Yelp’s implementation of Connect recognized that I was already logged in to Facebook itself and did not force me to authenticate a second time.
The content is something I would actually want my Facebook network to see. I had just given the tailor in question a 5-star review — of course I’d want to share this with as many people as possible.
Yelp takes a back seat, and is simply the mechanism for allowing me to create online word of mouth for another business; I’m promoting Jack’s Tailoring, not Yelp. Of course this promotes Yelp along the way, but it’s only because the platform actually provides utility.

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