Iman Jalali

With about 40 million active Yelp users a month and over 15 million reviews it’s time for Yelp to take all that review data it’s sitting on and do something useful with it… like incorporate a recommendation engine. With millions of users having overlap on the places they’ve rated, a recommendation engine could easily take their ratings and match them up with other restaurants/businesses they would probably enjoy as well. Netflix has one of the most advanced recommendation algorithms and they spend millions of dollars a year tweaking it… for a reason, it’s a huge contributing factor behind the success of Netflix. So much untapped potential at Yelp…

To some this may seem ridiculous, but I can’t tell you how many times I hear people with similar plans for their startup. Fear the buzzwords… my startup will be the next Facebook, this is a game changer, it’s revolutionary, it’s social media on steroids…. the list goes on and on.

I was recently in Del Mar, CA on business and stayed at L’Auberge Del Mar. I had tweeted about the visit and the first night at the hotel I came back to my room to find a couple beers on my desk along with chips and salsa. Nice little surprise… I tweeted and thanked the hotel and said this would be a great nightly service. The following night I returned to my room to find even more beers on ice along with a nice little note from the staff of the hotel.

This was my second visit to L’Auberge Del Mar and I’ve got to say it’s quickly become one of my favorite places to stay in California. Keep up the good work!

Crain’s Chicago Business did an article this week on our use of social media marketing at Train Signal. Have a read and let me know what you think!

Article – Train Signal Taps Twitter, Facebook to ‘Humanize’ Its Business

Iman Jalali & Eric Munn