• San Quentin State Prison On Yelp: 3 Stars, Horrible Food

    Mg Siegler

    MG Siegler is a general partner at Google Ventures and a columnist for TechCrunch, where he has been writing since 2009. Previously, MG was a general partner at CrunchFund. And before TechCrunch, MG covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. He’s previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked... → Learn More

    Monday, February 22nd, 2010

    No one likes the food at San Quentin State Prison. That’s the gist I get from reading its reviews on Yelp. Yes, it’s on Yelp.

    Maybe this shouldn’t be all that surprising since there is a museum that you can take a tour of (and they occasionally do private tours). But if you read over the reviews, a number of them are from people who have family inside or have been in themselves. Sure, they could be lying, but it’s still kind of humorous. California’s oldest prison, with the largest death row in the country, is being actively reviewed on Yelp.

    Here’s one reviewer — a supposed former short-term inmate — that gave it 2 stars:

    The 4 days I spent here were miserable. We all arrive on the grey goose & are schackled and escorted to a main pen to be counted & dispersed.

    This place is cold & damp and just like every prison movie -(the green mile) you have ever seen depiciting a shit hole prison.

    Yeah they play baseball with local sF organizations and they have deathrow inmates but mostly its a minimum/medium security facility with a bunch of short timers.

    It’s kind of nostalgic because of its sorted history but…

    This is not a place you wanna end up. Not all big bad & scary like the movies make it, but cold,damp and miserable with really shitty food.

    AVOID AT ALL COST!

    Ouch.

    And Yelp isn’t the only social site showing San Quentin the love. They have a Foursquare page too. Seven people have checked-in so far, with one Jeff D. lucky enough to be the mayor (with three visits). Gino W. left a tip:

    Stay away. The food is horrible

    I can’t find the prison on Gowalla yet. If some inmate is reading this, consider making the venue.

    Company: Yelp
    Website: yelp.com
    Launch Date: July 1, 2004
    IPO: February 3, 2012, NYSE:YELP

    Yelp (NYSE: YELP) connects people with great local businesses. Yelp was founded in San Francisco in July 2004. Since then, Yelp communities have taken root in major metros across the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Singapore, Poland and Turkey. Yelp had a monthly average of 86 million unique visitors in Q4 2012*. By the end of Q4 2012, Yelpers had written more than 36 million rich,...

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    Company: foursquare
    Website: foursquare.com
    Launch Date: April 16, 2009
    Funding: $112M

    Foursquare is a geographical location based social network that incorporates gaming elements. Users share their location with friends by “checking in” via a smartphone app or by text message. Points are awarded for checking in at various venues. Users can connect their Foursquare accounts to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, which can update when a check in is registered. By checking in a certain number of times, or in different locations, users can collect virtual badges. In addition, users...

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