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.
Yelp to allow businesses to respond to comments
Yelp has made an about-turn in its long-standing policy of preventing businesses from responding to disparaging reviews made on the Web site. Starting next week, small business owners will be able to publicly counter user-generated reviews.
Yelp was accused in February by a local Oakland, Calif. newspaper of “extorting” businesses by charging them to “move” bad reviews lower down on the list. The new move should put that rumor to rest.
Yelp, which launched in 2004, has angered many small businesses because it has not allowed them to respond to reviews, as TripAdvisor and other review sites do.
Yelp’s co-founder and chief executive, Jeremy Stoppelman, had said that this was to protect the voice of the consumer.
Next week’s change is part of a gradual maturation for the site. A year ago, Yelp started allowing business owners to update their businesses’ profile pages and privately contact reviewers.
Yelp is stressing that the new policy is intended to allow business owners to correct inaccuracies, provide their side of a story or explain how they have fixed a problem. If a business uses the site inappropriately, by using comments to advertise or to make personal attacks, the comments may be taken down (Yelp will not screen comments but rely on users to flag offending ones).
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?”
Qype aims to be Yelp for Europe…and beyond
A Yelp-like local reviews site clone called Qype has been growing aggressively in Europe and has designs on other continents including South America. Will the U.S. be next?
Qype, a German startup, has a strong presence in England, France and Spain in addition to its home country. A Brazilian site was recently launched. The company’s traffic is good: 6.3 million unique visitors a month across its network, says the company’s CEO Stephan Uhrenbacher.
Qype doesn’t have any immediate plans to hit North America. Its main competitive differentiation from Yelp is its multi-lingual capabilities which suggest there’s lots of room to grow without taking on Yelp directly.
Qype is planning to launch an iPhone-enabled app later this month; Yelp already has that running.
Qype has a decent sized war chest. The company closed an €8 million round in September, and has raised €13m to date.
Yelp not just for restaurant reviews
Yelp is often dismissed as a bar and restaurant site for recent college grads in San Francisco. But, according to new stats released by the company, only 45 percent of reviews on the site are for restaurant, the arts or nightlife.
The rest?
23 percent are for shopping, eight percent of reviews are for beauty and fitness, seven percent are for home and local services, four percent are for health, three percent are for travel and hotel, and a final three percent are for auto.
College grads 23-29 make up up the majority of users at 37 percent, but there’s a fair sprinkling of older fogies: 36 percent are between 30-39 and 12 percent are 40-49.
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.
- Zillow Introduces Zillow Partnership Platform
- HomeFinder.com Launches 2012 Agent Makeover Sweepstakes
- Quick Response Codes made available for Classified Liners with AdPerfect Classified Advertising Solution Release 2.9
- Audi, Chevrolet, and Volkswagen Rate Highest in Automotive Advertising ‘Best Practices’ With Messages of Efficiency and Innovation
- Yahoo! Names Fred Amoroso Chairman and Appoints Ross Levinsohn Interim CEO
- Tweet It, Like It, Watch It, Buy It. Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide’s New Study Finds 95 Million Americans Use Social Media To Shop
- Working Moms Taking Less Maternity Leave, CareerBuilder’s Annual Mother’s Day Survey Finds
- TheHomePage.com.au launches Chinese listings
- planetRE Launches Cutting Edge Online Marketing and Transaction Tools for Property Rentals and Management
- Groupon Merchant Satisfaction Beats Industry Benchmarks
