Yelp: Grew by 100% in Less than a Year! Is it the CraigsList 2.0?

Dec 12, 2009 by Abbas

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Yelp has been around for 5 years now and covered significant grounds in the local markets across the country since its humble launch in 2004. Yelp serves to about 16 million visitors a month which is a (almost)100% growth since the beginning of this year.

I didn’t get a chance to use Yelp much in the past as almost all of its information is restricted to the local markets in US, however, now that I’ve moved from India to US I am beginning to use Yelp as much as I can on PC and iPhone to find good local businesses.

The first thing that hits you the moment you start using Yelp as a guide to discover the best resources in your neighborhood is the wit that is attached to its insightful and great reviews. For a site like Yelp which is based on wisdom of crowds and user generated content, loyal users play a key role in the success of the site and from what I’ve seen so far, Yelp recognizes that very well.

The service not only motivates and keeps its reviewers engaged by offering several online perks for being active on the site but it also encourages them to participate in regular social gatherings organized by Yelp at places like bars, nightclubs, restaurants, etc.

Looking at the activities happening on and off the site it’s hard not to think that Yelp will pose a threat to Craigslist’s popularity and growth at some point in the future. Yelp is much more organized, offers great social features, produces useful content, has a growing loyal user base, etc. This is the perfect recipe to success.

Direct advertising for the local businesses remains the major source of revenue. So far the company has received $31 million in funding and is expected to post profits this year. The way things are going for Yelp, I expect it to be acquired by companies like Google which can integrate and use Yelps content in its several products.

Watch the following video interview posted by Newsweek couple of months ago.

Also, if you are a business owner watch the following video to see how it can help you grow locally

How To Use Yelp For Business Owners on Howcast