Qype - Live and tell

Are users of some social networks fed up of being ‘bitten’, ‘poked’ and having sheep thrown at them? That’s the question put forward by the Beeb’s tech programme BBC Click this week.

According to the programme a new breed of social networks are closing in on the likes of Facebook and MySpace, offering something more than “just a glorified friend finder”.

The BBC very nicely chose to include Qype in their group of ’socially useful sites’ and yours truly even makes a brief appearance in the programme to explain a little bit about how Qype works.

The feature looks at the rise of practical, people-powered sites as well as asking the usual questions about the possible abuse of user-generated content (owners hyping up their businesses for example), and the future of data portability across different networks.

You can watch the whole programme on this page (or just read the text version if you prefer). The story also made the front age of Digg so there’s a conversation going on on that site too.

As always, let us know what you think in the comments.

We’re getting bored again. We’ve been to all the same places and we want somewhere new! So we thought we’d have a nose around Qype to see where we can try out this week.

Places you’re loving:

And the ones you’re not so fond of:

So hurry up and join in the fun. Go to the good places and tell us what you think. Or find some new places and tell us all about those. We’re very nosy at Qype.

Isn’t it great to find a new place in your local area and then shout about it? Yeah, that’s fun. But sometimes it’s also pretty great when someone does all the work for you. That’s why Qype Guides are great. They do all the hard work, you just have to pick up an A-Z and go.

So what new guides are there for you to scout around this week?

See, you’re spoiling us. Don’t stop. It makes planning our busy social lives much easier.

Guernican has only been Qyping for the last month, but seeing as he’s making quite a name for himself with his witty reviews, we thought we’d have a cup of tea and a chat with him. You can take a look at his profile here and check out his reviews for yourself.

Tell us more about you.
I’m 32, I work for an advertising agency in Marylebone and I live in Islington. I’ve been a London inmate all my life so I feel eminently qualified to be mean about it.

What do you enjoy most about Qyping?
I’ve always liked the idea of being a critic. It seems far, far easier to sit back and snipe at something rather than actually go out there and create. Seriously, I’m very fond of certain places in London and if I’m enthusiastic about something then I like to share. I could always stand on a table in a pub and shout but this way is nicer, no?

What makes you happy about the places you review?
It depends on the place. I love good food, for example, but there’s so much more to a restaurant than food. The really brilliant restaurants make you feel very special when you eat there: you’re welcomed, looked after and indulged. Then there’s pubs and bars. Ten years ago I would have talked about the loudest and hardest to find, but now I’m much more interested in whether I have to wait to get served or if they can mix a decent martini. Or you could talk about something that you’re just happy is there… something there doesn’t seem to be any real reason for, like the art at Gloucester Road tube or the tortuous topography of Greenwich Park (which is, by the way, the best chunk of greenery to run round in London).

What annoys you the most?
The number of things that annoys me increases on a daily basis. Rude people. Unnecessary noise (there’s so much of it in London… ask yourself when you last had a second in public without a beeping, or a phone ringing, or someone shouting, or whatever). Smoking bans. How hard it seems to be to book a table at Gordon Ramsay. If only I had Dylan Moran’s raffish charm and laconic Irish drawl… I’d make a fortune on the stand-up circuit ranting about stuff.

What was the place you wanted to keep a secret?
I don’t think there’s anywhere I really want to keep to myself. If I find somewhere I love, I have to tell people. It might disappear otherwise. There used to be a Japanese restaurant on Tottenham Court Road called Ikkyu that I had many a great meal in. Then it just seemed to vanish. Maybe (sob) if I’d told more people about it, it would still be there. Life’s cruel.

How can people write better reviews?
I think people do a pretty good job. It helps that you’re writing about something you feel strongly about - well, you probably are - so just try and get some of that passion into your words.

If you’re not sure who to vote for in the forthcoming Mayoral election, fear not! You can have a practise first! Hurrah!

We’ve got a bit of a poll going so you can see what other people think and you can find out that Qype’s very own Bushgirl is hoping of running. That’s really quite exciting. Think about a fellow Qyper running the city. No more bad service! No more rude snotty waiters! Nice things for London!

The more we think about it, the more it makes sense… we say no to Ken! No to Boris! Yes to Bushgirl!

We also want to tell Boris to get a haircut, but that’s really another post altogether…

Flickr image from Torbert Timson’s photostream.

Next month Qype.co.uk is breaking out of the interweb and invading the real world.

To say thanks to our dedicated band of UK Qypers we’re inviting you all to one of our favourite London boozers for the night.

There’ll be free drinks, some awesome prizes, dancing until dawn (or at least closing time), and the opportunity to amass enough blackmail material on the Qype team to last the rest of their natural born lives!

And if you’re good we may even let you near the buffet.

THE VENUE: The brilliant Coach and Horses pub just off Charing Cross Road (click the link for all the details).

THE DATE: Thursday April 3.

THE TIME: 7pm until late.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

You might have noticed over the past few days that it’s now possible to embed images in your reviews.

Previously you could only upload your pics to a place’s gallery, but now you can show off your best shots within your review just by placing the url of the image file between two exclamation points, like this:

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/126/329059538_946fa95ccf_m.jpg!

The photo will appear in the body of your review, like this (you can see this review on the site here):

And it’s not just pictures you can add. If you feel like really pimping your review then you can put certain words in bold by surrounding them in asterisks (*like this*), put words in italics using underscores (_like this_), and link to other pages simply by posting the url (www.qype.com for example).

Happy formatting!

Sick of your usual haunts? Need somewhere new in your area? Maybe you’ve just got drunk and fallen out of every single bar in your area?

Loads of brand new places have been uploaded onto Qype this week, all over the country.

Here are just some of the best:

And the worst?

So what are you waiting for? Go and check them out. Then come back and tell us all about it.

Image from Atari, Gracinha & Marco’s flickr photostream.

Who hasn’t caught the eye of someone cute on the underground? We’d never chat anyone up, but we do count good-looking boys to pass the time in the morning. The more daring of you may even have gone on a date with someone you’ve met on the tube.

So this got Qype thinking about love and romance on the underground. Which is the most attractive tube line? Is it the Central line, with all its pretty tourists? Or the Jubilee line with all its posh Mayfair types in their suits? Our favourite is the Northern line, but only Northbound. But we have an unhealthy interest in indie guys with spiky hair.

Qype is running a survey in conjunction with Annie Mole who writes the London Underground Tube Blog. So tell us what you think of the opposite sex on the train and you can win a brand new ipod nano to play on your way to work. We promise not to print any racy stories you send us, but we do strongly encourage them.

Fancy winning a trip to the Big Apple? Yep, us too. That’s why we really don’t want to tell you about the fantastic prize draw this month. We want to win tickets to New York City ourselves.

All you have to do is click any of the bright red links, and answer the easy peasy question. If you want an extra ticket (to take Siany with you maybe?) then just review a new venue in town or invite some more mates to join in the Qype fun.

So just keep doing what you’re doing already and then our friends at Virgin Atlantic could be whisking you off to the other side of the world.

We’ll sit patiently waiting for our invite.