Yes, High Five Is A Popularity Contest
We've received a bit of feedback regarding the new "High Five" feature, and after a comment was posted about it yesterday, I thought it might be a good idea to clarify what the list's purpose is. Here's the comment in question:
Common lets be honest you are showcasing the wanna bee's by popularity list as thats what gets hits on the web, nothing to do with quality as there are so many BETTER Italian restaurants throught S Florida yet since they arent as well known (via PR$$$) they are hidden gems...As far as your list, How can a brand new restaurant (Scarpetta) even be considered??? Davito can u say fugetaboutit and I mean for the money and the pretentiousness for get about it!!!! Prime and Bova will give kudos to but not for the money as what $30.00 for a meatball I mean common folks choped meat oly costs 1.29/lb...I think Menu Pages should rethink this list/correct it and have an exit poll rather than base this on a High School popularity contest!!!!! Where is perricone's with Pasta on Thursdays for $10 bucks I mean common!!!This list is, precisely, a popularity contest. Sometimes it also coincides with quality; sometimes it doesn't. It's a snapshot of data that we thought our readers might find interesting; it's not an endorsement of any of the restaurants. Scarpetta is on there precisely because it's new and people are curious about it; Perricone's is not because it's not high-end. The idea is just to show which menus people are looking at most, and the fun part is finding those surprises — restaurants you wouldn't necessarily think of as being popular but whose menus are obviously being viewed often for one reason or another.
As for the suggestion that we conduct exit polls at, say, every Italian restaurant in Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties, well, we'd need a federal bailout in order to fund that endeavor.
High Five: High-End Italian [MP: South Florida]
Scarpetta [MenuPages]
Scarpetta [Official Site]
Perricone's Marketplace & Cafe [MenuPages]
Perricone's Marketplace & Cafe [Official Site]
Comments
I have to say that the way MenuPages is presenting this High Five thing is somewhat misleading. Although you clearly state that these are "the most popular restaurant listings on MenuPages," you then go on to say...
"Clearly, given the fact that there are two Blue Skys in the top five, people are eating a lot of takeout."
...well, actually...no.
All this means is that people were looking at the Blue Sky listing on your site. Maybe, they actually went to eat there. Maybe, after reviewing the menu on your site, they decided to go someplace else.
To conclude that these stats are anything other than how many people visited the site listing is misleading, in my opinion.
.
Posted by: Rick | February 4, 2009 06:45 PM
Rick, that's a good point. To infer that from the list is misleading. I'll make sure not to do that in the next post.
Posted by: Carolina | February 4, 2009 06:51 PM