Peter Krasilovsky's

Local Onliner

Apr 22
2013

LA Times Columnist Calls out Yelp for ‘Suppressing’ Reviews

I think Yelp is a fantastic service and a top resource, especially when I am travelling. But it was disturbing to read a column in The Los Angeles Times on Saturday by Sandy Banks, which suggests that Yelp is suppressing good reviews, and implies that there is a linkage between ad sales and allowing good …continue reading »

Categories: Social Media

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Mar 26
2013

Yelp Rolls Out Local Revenue Estimator

Primitive (and perhaps misleading) estimates on effective ROI have driven many local publishers up the wall. During Yelp‘s IPO period, one analyst suggested that it cost pizza shops almost a hundred dollars in advertising on Yelp for every pizza sold. To combat such mistakes and show how local ad dollars are really working, Yelp has …continue reading »

Categories: Research

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Mar 2
2012

Milestone: Yelp’s IPO is Today

Yelp is IPOing today at $15 a share, allowing it to raise $123 million on a valuation of $900 million –$400 million more than it was apparently offered by Google a couple of years ago. We know from the S1 that Yelp earned $58.4 million in net revenue in the first nine months of 2011, …continue reading »

Categories: Deals, HyperLocal, Money, Shopping/Transactions, Social Media

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Nov 22
2011

Reading Yelp’s S1: Rapid Growth, Amidst Challenges

Yelp’s S1, which was issued last week as a run-up to a $100 million IPO, reveals a lot of new data about the reviews leader. The big question about Yelp has been whether it can grow against increased pressure from Google, and also begin to take market share away from traditional media players such as …continue reading »

Categories: Google, Local Search, Money, Sales Channels, Social Media

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Sep 8
2011

Google Buys Zagat: Reviews Platform is the Focus

Google’s march into local reached another milestone today with the acquisition of Zagat, a major, international provider of high end restaurant and lifestyle reviews in 100+ cities. Zagat remains a major player in a reviews space it pioneered in 1979. In addition to hosting its patented “30 point” reviews from some 350,000 “surveyors.” Zagat has …continue reading »

Categories: Deals, Google, Verticals

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Aug 30
2011

Rethinking Deals after Facebook and Yelp Pullbacks

Facebook and Yelp are downsizing their separate deals initiatives after launching them with some fanfare. Facebook is now limiting its deals to users that check-in to businesses; and Yelp is sharply reducing the number of deals that it features, while continuing to support self-serve efforts that are integrated with other Yelp ad products. Are these …continue reading »

Categories: Deals, Shopping/Transactions

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Dec 7
2010

ILM:10: Yelp’s Jeremy Stoppelman on Google Places, Mobile, etc.

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, in his opening keynote at ILM:10, noted a general frustration with Google’s apparent de-emphasis of Yelp’s content, but said he sees major opportunity in mobile app access as a workaround of Google. Stoppelman showed an example of a 2007 search that showed the vast majority of results coming from Yelp. “We …continue reading »

Categories: Conferences, Deals, Google, Mobile, Social Media

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