Yelp

In a digital era defined by sites like Facebook, Foursquare and Groupon, a new breed of consumers has emerged: social shoppers, people increasingly relying on the wisdom of the digital crowd to help them make their purchasing decisions. Sound like someone you know? Read on ...

With IPO valuations puffing up like a perfect souffle, you have to love Yelp's timing: The review website goes public Friday. But be careful: There are quite a few reasons why this blazing hot deal may end up burning eager investors.

After reading the breathless media coverage about the rumored $2 billion Yelp IPO, I have one question: Does the online-review site make money? None of the articles made any mention, but profitability is the issue that should be first on investors' minds.

Running a restaurant has never been easy, but it's getting harder to succeed these days for eateries that shun the social couponing and new media games. A decade ago, all you needed was a strong concept, a healthy strategy and a few ads in the local paper, but the Internet has changed everything.

Shoppers looking for advice from their fellow consumers have a tough enough time sifting out the false reviews posted on legitimate product-review sites. But there's a worse problem out there online: "Nefarious" websites entirely devoted to promoting merchandise with fake reviews.

If you often use online reviews to help you make purchasing decision, you needn't employ a secret algorithm to ferret out the fakes. Follow these tips to find the critiques that count.

On Thursday, Google bought Zagat, a reviewing empire that represents the gold standard for crowd-sourced content. So to get a glimpse of what the future holds for the search giant, the review company, and Internet reviews in general, we've talked with Google VP Marissa Meyer and Zagat founders Tim and Nina Zagat.

On Thursday morning, the announcement went out across the land: Google, the undisputed master of search, had acquired Zagat, America's best-known and most highly-regarded restaurant review company. The companies presented the merger in rosy terms, but it didn't take long for the snarky critiques to begin.

It's a classic tale, retold a million times: The brash young gunslinger rises to the top of his craft, only to find himself facing a new generation itching to unseat him. But for Zagat surveys, the most famous name in restaurant reviews, the revolution is far from over.

Before social media was a gleam in the Internet's eye, Tim and Nina Zagat built a crowd-sourced culinary reviewing empire out of the simple idea that ordinary people could rank restaurants as well as any famous critic. Here's how they did it, and where the Zagat's guides are headed in the Digital Age.