Not to worry. Apparently, the deal is off.

I would agree with you about Yelp’s business practices being less than appealing and Yelp is not directly relevant in many industry segments at this point.

In my opinion, Google was trying to buy was market share dominance of unique page views and the advertising growth. However, it now appears to be a mute point.

I like many, ask for a review from my clients through Yelp, got four or five of them and not one appears on my company listing now because they are not active “Yelpers.” Add to that the rumors and controversy about Yelp’s advertising pressures and maybe a new boss is what Yelp needs to become more useful to a greater variety of service industries.

I have a lot of faith in Google to nail down “ground truth” as well as it has relevance given the time to make it better.

If the Yelp local search model is the next way of doing things… I’m going sweat a little. They are not relevant to my client base. How do you see Google potentially using Yelp? Will it replace Google Maps or augment it somehow? And in what way?

I agree but I also think though that in the case of Yelp…it is more than “feeling out” as the combo of Maps and Yelp creates a growth juggernaut in local that will instantly achieve market dominance of viewers and ads.

The buzz about Google sending out Favorite Places packets with window decals to 100,000 of the “most…

It appears that Yelp sales people called one of our businesses twice. That is because we claimed the listing.

I searched on yelp for Italian restaurants in my region. Yelp is way more urban oriented than suburban and clearly can’t accomodate rural now with a 5 mile search radius. That works for cities but it doesn’t work for suburbs or exurbs.

Noticed one advertiser that grabbed my attention; a restaurant I’ve probably gone to for 15-20 years, though not recently; maybe 20 miles away and w/ a lot of traffic. I always thought of it as “best”.

Still gets awesome reviews. The ads were showing when I put in some local jurisdictions but not others. My eye gravitated toward the ad because I recognized the name. The ad gave the restaurant presence beyond the 5 mile radius….and reviews included those from people in my area and beyond. Clearly a suburban business can draw from beyond 5 miles

Yelp works hard to create a “community” and they have it.

Its a nifty idea by google, its interesting how it worked for you, Mike, its interesting to note that the “quality” of Yelp wannabes is improving.

David: If Yelp is generating $45 mill in sales now and Google is willing to pay $0.5 billion…that is a lot for that business…but I’m sure they are counting on growth.

meanwhile, think I’ll go to that restaurant.

I would agree

@Miriam

If the deal goes through I think that Yelp gets $, instant ability to scale, access to oodles of data and top notch engineers.