Yelp Official Blog

Yelp has more reviews than there are people in Tajikistan!

(According to these estimates).

A year ago Yelpers had written about 3.5M reviews of local businesses, today that number stands at a whopping 7M. It's amazing (and humbling) to see what can happen when millions of people come together to collectively share their local knowledge... consumers' lives have been improved and great businesses can succeed faster than ever before.

NYTimes: Your customers are talking about you...

Kermit Pattison of the NYTimes just published a helpful article for small business owners that gives an excellent overview of how businesses should approach online reviews of their business. The article provides simple best practices to keep in mind when working with review sites and includes interviews with a number of local business owners.

Yelp and the San Francisco Small Business Commission

We recently had the honor of presenting before San Francisco's Small Business Commission. Established in 2007, the Commission consists of local business leaders appointed by the Mayor to advocate on behalf of San Francisco small business owners. Our presentation and subsequent Q&A lasted about an hour.

Video from the meeting is viewable here:

http://bit.ly/SF_Commission

The commissioners had some great questions, and we felt our presentation was well-received. We always enjoy sharing information about Yelp with the business community, and we thank the San Francisco Small Business Commission for inviting us to present.

Do you belong to a business organization that you feel would benefit from an informational presentation by Yelp? Let us know here and we'll do our best to accommodate your request.

Yelp participates in City Hall celebration of local business owners

Last week, Yelp had the privilege of sharing the stage with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom for a Google-sponsored Celebration of Local Business.

At Yelp, we celebrate local businesses every day. After all, Yelp isn't just a place where consumers voice their opinions -- it's a website where conversations take place between business owners and their customers. Yelp's free business tools allow business owners to respond to their reviewers (both privately and publicly); it's a great way for businesses to converse with their most vocal customers while managing their online reputations.

Here's a clip of Yelp COO Geoff Donaker at the event:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFt0FYKIFVg#t=43m09s

We owe a special thanks to Google, the City of San Francisco, and Mayor Newsom's office for inviting us to participate.

Yelp search results get a little more friend-ly

Recently, a Nielsen survey announced that consumers trust their friends first and then user-generated reviews and consumer opinions second. Here at Yelp, we've been tinkering with a way to combine both those levels of trust and today, we're excited to release this nifty little search feature for our registered users. 

When you are logged into your account and you search for a business, let's say "sushi", you'll be able to see how many of your friends and people you follow have reviewed a business - right there in the search results. 

Assuming your friends have good taste, this should make it a little easier for you to decide on where to head for sushi, a mechanic, hair dresser, well, any business really. No longer do you have to choose between your friends and Yelp. Now you have both.

Because @Aplusk Wants to Know Where to Get the Best Darn Pizza, Too

We all know that Yelp is the place to get the 411 on local businesses whether it’s a dog groomer, mechanic or even a creme brulee cart. But, it’s time we let everyone else in on the secret. Including Ashton. And your Mom.

As the bonafide social media addict here at Yelp, it's with great pleasure that I get to announce - you guessed it - a new feature that lets you share your Yelp reviews with Facebook Connect and Twitter. Many of you have been using a variety of social media platforms to further share your Yelp reviews of local businesses. Today we’re making that process much easier by presenting Yelpers with the option to seamlessly broadcast their Yelp reviews.

It’s a one-time sign-up process. Upon completing a review you will be presented with the option to choose whether you would also like to distribute it via Facebook Connect, Twitter or both. Simply fill in your log-in details and you’re done!

While the log-in process only occurs once, moving forward, you will always be presented with the option of whether or not you want to share your review to your Facebook or Twitter feeds, respectively. Additionally, any photos you upload to Yelp.com will also be included when sharing reviews for that business via Facebook Connect.

You always have full control of what reviews you do or do not want to share via these other platforms. So don't worry, we totally understand why you may choose to share your review on the great, new speakeasy down the street but not the one about the strip tease work out class you're partaking in with your girlfriends (ahem). So what are you waiting for? Start sharing and get connected to more Yelpers around the web - including me @cckarl!