Yelp, Inc. is a Web 2.0 company that operates a social networking, user review, and local search web site of the same name, combining features from traditional Internet yellow pages sites such as Yellowpages.com, local city guide sites such as Citysearch and Metromix, and community-oriented social media sites like Facebook and Myspace. As of July 2008, over 3.4 million people access the Yelp web site each month, putting it in the top 500 of U.S. Internet web sites. [2]
History
Yelp launched its namesake web site into the San Francisco market in October 2004[3] under the direction of founders Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, both of whom were early software engineering employees at PayPal. The company received $6 million in early stage funding from venture capital firms Mission Street, led by another former Paypal-er Max Levchin, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Additional investments were made in the amounts of $10 million by Benchmark Capital in 2006[4] and $15 million by DAG Ventures in 2008.[5] Yelp expanded from its San Francisco roots to open an east coast office in Manhattan in the first half of 2008.
Product description
Site features
Yelp hosts an online database of user-generated reviews of local businesses. Site visitors interested in finding a product or service may search or browse listings by geographic location and "star rating," among other fields, to find businesses of particular interest to them. The website also has a forum for online socialization and to discuss local businesses and events. The star rating is a five-point scale - 1 is worst and 5 is best. Each listing contains a dossier with objective details like address, hours, and parking that can be edited by members and the public, but a moderator must approve these changes.
The breadth of Yelp content is made navigable for members and the general public by a city-based organization scheme that further divides content into categories. Information can be accessed by web or mobile browsers and parsed for content in five ways: 1) searching for keywords in a specified city or neighborhood (supported in major cities), 2) browsing through reviews in a cross-listed hierarchy of predefined categories, 3) redirection from organic or sponsored search engine results, 4) viewing member profiles and their review history lists, 5) browsing maps with drop pins that denote reviewed businesses through a Google Maps API.
Yelp creates user interest by merging local reviews and social networking functionality, a combination that increases web traffic and other usage metrics by making the site more entertaining to use. The combination also creates a de-facto reputation system, where users can see which members are the most popular, respected, and prolific contributors, who has been a member the longest, and who has interests and taste choices the most like theirs. Popular reviews in each city are featured in a "review of the day" or the "weekly yelp" newsletter. These factors, as well as personal connections, affect ranking of various users and their reviews, so that the most relevant information is listed first. Combining reviews with social networking was a fairly novel approach when the company started. Although newer companies have emulated it, Yelp is one of the most successful among its peers at this approach.
The company promotes online community by offering a variety of site features, described below. Off-line community is fostered through events for elite members at nightclubs, bars, restaurants, and cultural venues in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Chicago.
User profiles
Yelp offers a directory for unregistered site visitors to search for businesses or read ongoing discussions. Certain features, such as the ability to contribute a review or add a comment to a discussion, are available only to users with verified accounts, which are free. Those whose contributions to the site are considered valuable are promoted to "elite" status, and receive a virtual badge and additional invitations to real-world events. Business owners may participate in the site as well, and can also become paid "sponsors", for which they receive special visual enhancements and preferential search results for their listings.
User profiles include a standard set of attributes such as photographs, a changeable default photograph that serves as an Avatar (icon), and several fields relating to the user's location, birthplace, hobbies, links, etc. Yelp allows wide latitude for personal expression on the site and does not routinely moderate or censor content. Some innocent playfulness is tolerated, such as reviews of non-businesses (e.g. ex-boyfriends, beer, squirrels, bacon, and other websites) and discussion of politics or dating. However, the company strongly encourages members to use their real name and photograph and participate in a sincere, mature way. Multiple accounts, and abusive or improper behavior, are discouraged.
Elite Squad
Yelp awards Elite status to users judged to be the most active and influential, and who display good humor and provide useful information, personal experiences and insider tips. Elite Yelpers receive a badge on their profile with the corresponding year in which the award was received. Members may have multiple badges for receiving the badge in consecutive years. [6]
Business Reviews
Users may review any local business that provides products or services. In a high-usage city such as San Francisco nearly every restaurant, bar, and retail store has multiple reviews, often hundreds, and there is considerable competition among users to be the "first to review" a new establishment (for which the user receives a citation). There is also considerable coverage of professional services, medical providers, automotive services, cultural venues, hotels, museums, parks, attractions, government services, etc. Users may add new businesses and update business information if they notice any missing coverage.
Business-to-business services are not often reviewed, nor are companies without a local retail presence such as large manufacturers or internet-based companies. The company does not host reviews of products, films, bands, albums, celebrities, and the like.
Yelp accepts reviews of any business or service in the United States. The most active cities include:
- San Francisco, CA — offers neighborhood filtering
- Boston, MA — offers neighborhood filtering
- Chicago, IL — offers neighborhood filtering
- New York, NY — offers neighborhood filtering
- Philadelphia, PA — offers neighborhood filtering
- Minneapolis, MN
- Washington, D.C. — offers neighborhood filtering
- Seattle, WA — offers neighborhood filtering
- Los Angeles, CA — offers neighborhood filtering
- San Jose, CA
- Austin, TX — offers neighborhood filtering
- San Diego, CA — offers neighborhood filtering
- Houston, TX — offers neighborhood filtering
- Portland, OR — offers neighborhood filtering
API
Yelp released an application programming interface (API) on August 2, 2007.[7] The API can be used to add review information regarding local businesses to a website, widget or mobile application.[8] The service is free, however, each website must meet certain Yelp Branding Requirements.[9] Developers construct representational state transfer (REST) calls and the API returns results in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format.[10] Results include business locations, reviews, pictures and ratings.[10] Developers can input a business phone number, neighborhood, business category, or geographic location to retrieve business listings.[8] A popular use of the API integrates business reviews into existing Google Maps applications. Zillow.com and HotelMapSearch.com are two examples of Google Maps applications that allow users to overlay nearby Yelp businesses while viewing the primary content of homes for sale and hotel locations.
Facebook Beacon Integration
As of December 13, 2007 Yelp Inc. has implemented a new privacy policy in order to collect and transfer personal information through Beacon.[11] The previous privacy policy stated, "We take privacy very seriously. We do not sell, rent, share, trade or give away any of your personal information, unless required to by law. We hate spam as much as you do."[12] While Facebook no longer automatically shares information with other users, it still retains and stores all information sent to its site(s).
Advertisements
Businesses may join Yelp's "Featured Business Program" to receive benefits such as personalized messages and slide shows on their business profiles, reports on profile traffic, and other monthly reports. [13] Sponsors are allowed to highlight a positive review on their profile page and place a "you might also consider" reference on search results pages that might otherwise direct traffic to competitors' profiles. Such messages from competing businesses are not shown on sponsors' results pages.[14]
References
- ^ "Restaurants Learn to Yelp", San Francisco Business Times, June 27, 2008. Accessed July 10, 2008
- ^ yelp.com (rank 769) - Web Site Audience Profiles from Quantcast
- ^ Orlowski, Andrew. Yelp! A viral recommendation system you can't resist?. Register. 2004-10-13.
- ^ City guide Yelp raises $10M in second round
- ^ Yelp yanks another $15 million | The Social - CNET News.com
- ^ Yelp - Yelp Elite Squad - Home
- ^ "The Yelp API is Here", The Yelp Blog, August 2, 2007. Accessed May 23, 2008
- ^ a b Yelp Review Search API
- ^ Yelp Branding Requirements
- ^ a b Yelp API Technical Overview
- ^ Yelp, Inc. Privacy Statement accessed December 24, 2007
- ^ Yelp, Inc. Privacy Statement accessed December 5, 2007
- ^ Business Owner's Guide | Yelp
- ^ Business Owner's Guide | Yelp
Press Coverage
External links
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Winner, 2007 award in the category Guides/Ratings/reviews
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