I get emails all the time from people asking me to post about their new website but majority of the time they’re very poorly put together that I just can’t post about it or recommend it to anyone. Yesterday I did get impressed though when the guys behind a new website called Yalla Wain emailed me.
It’s actually a pretty nice looking site, no flash (that’s a very good thing), it’s fast, simple and practical. YallaWain.com is a site where people can go read and find out about restaurants in Kuwait. You can also sign up and write your own reviews or leaves tips for other people. Even the way its setup so you could navigate around the site is easy since you can choose by location, type of food or country the food is from.
The only negative thing I have to say is the fact you need to be invited to be able to write a review and not just a simple sign up like most sites. I think that’s NOT a great move. The site just launched today and it needs as many reviews as possible to make it successful. Locking up registration and having it invite only means its going to take a lot longer than it should to get some decent reviews in. Anyway check out the site, I like it. [YallaWain.com]
28 replies on “Yalla Wain”
Maybe they only want people who they won’t write negative reviews… which means you and me won’t be let in! LOL
Lol
thanks for the share … I always want to review restaurants but its not my field … now I get to do that 🙂
I’ll join and post up my reviews. I like to contribute to sites like this.
They better allow both positive and negative reviews, otherwise that defeats the whole purpose of the site.
nice website al9ara7ah and i loved the design and the way everything is organized…
They have some negative posts about some places and food…
Nice work o 3ashaw 3eyal aljahra!
Another Yelp.com copycat?
lol forget Yelp this is a Foursquare.com rip off integrated into Yelp’s concept
jaja: you know how many food/dining sites there are in the world? you think they’re all copies of Yelp? Geez if we followed your way of thinking the whole internet would be made up of just 10 websites. 1 blog, 1 news site, 1 search site, 1 shopping site etc.. etc..
I am really getting fed up with the way people are negative for no reason. I think from now on I am going to started deleting comments like yours.
Really good website!
I’m so impressed! but I wonder if it’s a custom script or if they’re using a CMS. I initially suspected they used drupal. But I’m so glad they didn’t use flash.
Kuwaiti websites have this awful habit of using flash.
Thank you Mark!
Zaydoun,
That’s not the case actually. You can request an invitation through the website and chances are you’ll get one.
This is a beta launch which means we’re now testing in a live environment and optimizing to handle a growing user base as fast as possible.
Mark,
The alternative to invite-only signups comes with a downside too. We have given this enough thought and we are of the view that by being less liberal with the registration process, we’ll be able to offer more value to people. Our goal is to have real people contributing, not more people. Reviews will likely be more responsible and valuable when they come from someone we can recognize.
Yousef,
We’d like to assure you and everyone that YW will not be influenced by business owners.
jaja,
Thank you for your comment. Please allow me to clarify two things:
1) No one is reinventing the wheel online or offline. You start with what works and move from there. With that said, we have been inspired by many more websites. You’ll be able to find similarities with twitter/foursquare/google/facebook. We wanted YW to look familiar to people so they wouldn’t spend their energy figuring out the website.
2) The aim is to create value and not compete in an originality contest, which by the way, not even yelp/twitter/foursquare/facebook would win.
I think its a cool website, its a shame that its invite only 🙁
Mark: The internet is made up of millions of websites but only a few make it to the top, and you make it to the top by innovating not merging a bunch of websites together. Yelp, Foursquare or any other website made it because either they made something that wasn’t done or they have improved an already existing idea. YW have done neither.
Go ahead and delete whatever you want, facts will remain facts.
Hamad: I do wish you the best of luck. However, you probably need more than my wishes. You’re saying your aim is to create value i.e. content but then redundant content isn’t valuable content. You’re not seriously trying to tell me your content exceeds in both quality and quantity than that facebook, twitter and foursquare have? All of the three do already win. I wasn’t being sarcastic when I said I wish you the best of luck, but you’re gonna need more than that.
all against “only invites” say aigh!
me: aigh!
not bad,, but almost everyone tried each and every restaurant here in Kuwait so i dont see the point of it
If they give me the chance to review a restaurant, I would talk about Hardee’s.. I got poisoned twice from them >_>
I very much like the idea and the site. It has huge potential and people in Kuwait will catch up to it in no time.
I can clearly see the whole brainstorming and thinking process that the people behind Yalla Wain went through to come up with all of this.
Restaurant owners will be the first to follow this site once it picks up, which is sooner than later. Hopefully they will have no choice but to act up on the negative reviews and feedback, and us customers will be happy.
Who knows, maybe Hardees, KFC, and Burger King will make it back to my life one day …
WIshing you all the best Yalla Wain Guys.
Thanks for the heads up.
Just requested an invite, we’ll see how it goes.
Love the idea and love the navigation.
So far, well done 🙂
Oh Shit … another food website
jaja: don’t think he is competing with facebook, yelp, twitter and google. All he’s doing is creating a locally focused community driven restaurant review site. how many of those are there?
I think the idea with the “invitation” is not to have people just writing random things in their reviews.
Mark,
That’s precisely what we’re trying to do.
Yelp’s success is attributed to their early focus in San Francisco. Facebook in Harvard. And foursquare in Tampa.
i checked the site out and doesnt look interesting. its just gonna make ppl more fat and eat more. i wish someone would do something educational or fun rather then “criticize” food!
FUN ;D First in kuwait ;D great idea ;D
Waiting the invitation email ;D
Dandoon, really? If people are wanting to eat out, they’ll do it anyway. A review website is not likely to make people go eat if they don’t wish to, it just helps them decide where to go.
D:
all im saying is that ppl should change the focus from to food to something different. ask yourself this: when you and ur friends decided to go out your main reason or focus is to …? have lunch or dinner right? ever wonder why we have so much obese ppl? all im saying we should do something different that is fun plus makes us active rather sit on a table and munch on food. Dont get me wrong, the site is well designed, but the idea isnt necessary cause kuwait is small plus everyone knows whats the latest restaurants that r open and whats good to eat. if you havent notice word of mouth is the best form of advertisement in kuwait. Plus i think their should be a real food critic rather then random ppl telling us what they think? i mean do u see Victoria Beckham criticizing Joe’s Restaurant (london)? Would ppl take her seriously? Do u get my point?
I was thinking of starting a site, where you can tag how many times you got food posioning, that would be some review!
hahahaha, i agree with Qaiss! that would actually help us to eat healthy plus make it easier for the “baladeya” to close unsanitary places!
I requested an invite over a week ago, and I still haven’t received an email/invitation or anything. If they keep it up with this “invite only” thing, I don’t see this website getting too far. Very disappointing thus far…