Yelp Mobile adds Twitter-like quick reviews
Pity the poor business that gives bad service. Yelp, the Web site that lets users review businesses, has updated its mobile version so that iPhone owners can post Twitter-like 140 character quick reviews while they’re actually in the establishment, rather than waiting until they get home. That means if there’s a fly in your soup, Yelp readers will know about it in real time.
If you’re more ambitious, you can compose a full review on your iPhone and post it later when you get back to your main computer and the Yelp Web site.
Going the other way, Yelp’s mobile app uses GPS so that reviews, tips and photos will pop up wherever you are, letting you decide which trendy wine shop to visit before you even walk in the door.
There’s even a Facebook style “feed” where you can see what your friends are reviewing.
Yelp is definitely onto something. Already, the company’s iPhone app accounts for five percent of Yelp’s overall traffic (about one million monthly visitors).
We wrote about Yelp and mobile competitor CitySearch previously.
Citysearch goes mobile, takes on Yelp
Like a restaurant? Tell the world while you’re still finishing your ravioli.
Citysearch is taking on Yelp in the fast growing iPhone software space. Both companies now have their own iPhone apps. Citysearch is brand new; Yelp has been out a scant two months ago and is already the iPhone’s third most popular travel app (after Urbanspoon and Google Earth).
Both Citysearch and Yelp use the iPhone’s GPS to let you find nearby restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels, and stores. You can rate and review the places you visit too. Soon you’ll be able to take pix and movies and upload those too.
Note to wait staff: really mean it when you say “how may I serve you today?”
IAC CitySearch launches first major redesign in 10 years
IAC’s local online guide CitySearch has launched its first major redesign in nearly a decade. The move is aimed at competing with more aggressive newcomers like Yelp. The revised site tried to strike a balance between user-generated reviews and its own editorial reviews.
CitySearch is now in beta (see http://beta.citysearch.com/ – the old site automatically redirects here) and has added new social features such as classifying reviews by members, as well as more detailed search functionality (there are 140 local city guides covering some 75,000 cities and neighborhoods).
Perhaps most interesting, CitySearch now is integrated with Facebook so that you can import your Facebook friends and automatically post stories you write in CitySearch to your Facebook wall which can be shared with your Facebook friends.
Recognizing the power of the iPhone, CitySearch also has a new mobile version – see http://m.citysearch.com/.
Local service provider reviews are taken from InsiderPages which CitySearch bought last year. InsiderPage will live on as a separate brand.
IAC in its Q2 08 earnings call said that CitySearch was to do over $100 million revenue in 2009. With the economy in the dumps, the company may not make those numbers, but we’ll certainly be watching.
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