As expected, Yelp has added the ability to add short videos with reviews. The company announced that users of its iPhone app can now upload 3- to 12-second videos with their reviews, allowing them to show off aspects like ambiance, lighting, noise level, and other features of local businesses not easily captured by photographs.
The online review company clarified that the videos aren't meant to be video reviews, but rather an extension of the visual experience. For example, a video can help you share the size and space of a hotel room, the layout of a retail shop, ambiance of a bistro, and more.
Before this addition Yelp users could upload photos for other users to get a better visual sense of food, location and more. The company revealed that its users, or Yelpers, as the company likes to call them, upload more than 23,000 photos from their mobile apps alone per day.
While photos are a great way to add a visual element to your review, videos are great for conveying the atmosphere of a business, the company said.
Along with this new feature, the company also added some polish to the app and fixed a bunch of bugs. You can download the iOS app from the App Store for free. Yelp also said the feature is coming to Android soon, though it doesn't indicate how soon.