Last week, Yahoo! announced an overhaul to their Yahoo! Local service where improvements would harness the voice of their millions of user reviews, ratings and other consumer generated content to bolster the value of the service and give local businesses a real chance of search exposure.

Not that he’d know who’s a Yelper and who’s not – it could even be a ham-fisted way of getting publicity that’s likely to backfire – but a café owner in Oakland has reportedly put a sign in his window that reads "No Yelpers."

Webmasters whose sites have been flagged in Google’s search results as being potential links to malware have a new process for updating their listings after cleaning the site.

Office products retailer Staples has launched online customer reviews from PowerReviews.

If you think it’s only large businesses that need to worry about their online reputation, the Wall Street Journal wants to remind you otherwise.

They take a look at the effects of negative reviews on small businesses and give an example of a spa owner who discovered she had a 2 1/2 star rating on Yelp.com.

Wal-Mart today said it is adding customer reviews and ratings on its Web site.

If nine out of ten people prefer cookies over rice cakes, gum over chewing tobacco, or champagne over sulfuric acid, haven’t you always wondered who the oddballs are?  Well, Ford’s found them, and is now using their online forum posts to promote the Mercury Mariner.

On Edmunds.com, the 1999 Daewoo Leganza received a “Consumer Rating” of 8.4 (out of a possible 10 points).  The 2002 Aston Martin DB7 only got an 8.2.  So please, please, please be careful when reading user reviews.

To a business, user reviews can be a valuable asset.  They can also be quite a risk – what if the reviewers don’t like your products or services?  Yet, as usual, knowledge is power (unless you know that you’re screwed), and so here are four things to realize when it comes to user reviews.

About half of UK consumers who use the Internet to research travel do not make hotel reservations because of a negative online review, according to American Express "Hospitality Monitor 2007" report.