I will give a more detailed response later - out at the mo - but, harsh or not, insomniasexx and kleinbl00 are making very valid points, though I'm sure I'll have my two cents to throw in the ring when I can. Insom in particular points out the monetization of transaction data, which some particularly hysterical user on either here or reddit had insisted banks were already somehow doing - without the logic & application behind this app. (I highly doubt your banks are monetizing your transactions at this point. But with the introduction of apps like this I bet you they will begin to try - IF they can get the cost/benefits to scale. Big if. The CFPB would also probably clamp down on such activities like a motherfucker - but that can only happen when such activities become widespread and known.)

I'll also raise right away that some of the objections made against yelp - that it's unverifiable - aren't valid. You can check in to a location on yelp which validates you were there; you can post photos of your meal which is pretty valid evidence unless you really are such a sad sucker you are faking photos for fake reviews on yelp. (The question then becomes: why? Why would the effort of such deception be worth it? When being paranoid/conspiracy theorist, I find it always good to ask why covert activities would be worth the imagined or perceived actions. Also: paranoia is, in many ways, twisted arrogance.)

I'd say that with an article in Forbes your friend is doing pretty well for himself though; there's got to be plenty of buzz. However I trust yelp enough. So what if there's a single fake review on yelp? I'm confident most are real. I need a recommendation for dinner? Well, what kind of cuisine do I feel like tonight? I'll search it in yelp and go from there, or just search top rated restaurants.

This strikes me as similar to Angie's list except less practical. And more easy to successfully monetize.

Unlike many app developers, these guys are undoubtedly going to profit from their customers. I read that social media and similar sites' product is user data, and the problem is these sites are still figuring out who wants to know that Richard Nixon is one of my "inspirational people" on Facebook and how that's worth money. These guys are smartly capitalizing on their users. They are probably very smart and clever. I think they could take their smarts and clever and build a more useful app that consumers would want to use more and would cause more people to actually seriously consider letting the app "in" to the level that they want their app to get "in."

Have you guys heard of waze? Now that's a cool crowd sourcing app.