The latest release notes for Yelp’s iPhone app.

We’re amping up the fun with our latest app update!

• Yelp Badges! Check in around town to earn fancy fun badges to proudly display on your profile. Are you a Sushi Sensei? An Instigator? Have a Big Night? Only your badges will tell.

• Yelp Royalty! Got the most check-ins at a business? You’re the Duke, good sir (or Duchess, for the ladies). Most Dukedoms in a ’hood? You’re the Baron! Most in the city? You’re the King!

Rejected college humour skit, surely?

I have no issue with Yelp expanding into check-ins. It’s a good concept, they have a great database for it, and a weirdly Web 2.0-isolated userbase who might enjoy it. Plus competition is good, and perhaps their app crashes less, yadayada. But really, Dukedoms?

Developing similar features is one thing, rewards/achievements/bravos/badges have a long way to go; different spins on the same concept, sure. But photocopying FourSquare? That’s sour. Plus, you want me to march around San Francisco announcing I’m a Duke? You didn’t find a better term in the thesaurus?

It reads like a Chinese brand knock-off, except it’s Yelp.

(Additionally, Dukedoms are hereditary, passed down through families, rather than an electoral/meritocratic title. So it being awarded and revoked based on check-ins is wrong too. Sorry.)