Yelp Official Blog

Checking-in? We’re Upping the Ante.

Hard to believe that a year ago we launched Yelp check-ins on iPhone and shortly thereafter, Android. More recently, we also added check-in offers, giving the millions of businesses on Yelp the ability to offer rewards to yelpers who check into their business. 

The response has been stellar. In the past year alone, we’ve seen check-ins grow 71% month/month, and the engagement on our other mobile features has been, uh, mindblowing.

But with that growth and thousands of businesses ponying up the goods, we’re kicking it up a notch and taking Yelp check-ins to the next level!

What do we mean?

Starting today, the requirement to earn a Dukedom on Yelp (aka, you’re the most frequent yelper at that biz) is 3 check-ins. Following that, it’s just the same: you earn the title by checking-in more times than whomever is the reigning Duke or Duchess. The person that has the most Dukedoms in their neighborhood gets the Baron or Baroness title for that ‘hood. The most neighborhoods in their city and they become King or Queen.

So what happens next?

We’re updating our Royalty Leaderboard rankings to reflect this change so now you have even MORE incentive to check-in on Yelp! Not only because you have a shot at climbing to the top, but we happen to know there are quite a few badges and check-in offers just waiting to be unlocked!

As usual, your feedback is important to us. If you have thoughts or suggestions, let us know here!

Wanted: Business Owner. Must Travel.

As you probably know from past posts (since you are an avid and regular reader of this blog, right?), we are constantly updating Yelp.com and our Yelp mobile apps based on your feedback to make your experience even better.

Recently, a suggestion we’ve gotten from both business owners and consumers, is that for businesses like plumbers, limo drivers, repairmen -- basically, any service-based business -- we create a function that will let a business specify where and how far they will travel. For example, if I’m a photographer based in San Francisco, but I also service the nearby town of Palo Alto, it would be nice to have the ability to specify that on my Yelp listing.

Well, wait no further, my friends! Starting today, business owners in service-based categories who have unlocked their Yelp page will be able to add up to 5 major cities to their areas of service via our Business Owner Tools!

 

The best part? Once a business updates its areas of service, it becomes searchable in those cities on Yelp. Meaning that bride-to-be in Palo Alto looking for a photographer...? Yeah, she’ll find you. 

 

And since yelpers are increasingly relying on their Yelp mobile apps to find businesses when out and about (especially when in a bind; hint, hint, mechanics, locksmiths, etc), help them make it even easier for consumers to find you on Yelp wherever you might be -- or go!

Why Wait in Line? Make Reservations with Yelp Mobile and OpenTable!

Imagine this: you’re walking down the street in Chi-town with a pretty lady in tow. She hints that she’s been dying to try one of the restaurants from Yelp’s 2010 Best of List and she’s hungry. Like, now. It’s 7:30pm; there’s no way you’ll get a table without a long wait. So, what are you going to do?

Easy. Pull out the Yelp app on your iPhone, iPad or Android, search for “Girl and the Goat” and wham, bam, thank you ma’am! You have 8:00pm reservations for two (not to mention the address, directions and top meal picks to boot) without even having to make a call.

How?

Hint, Hint
 

You may remember that in June of last year, Yelp and OpenTable joined forces to bring users the ability to easily book reservations at their favorite restaurants in one easy step without ever having to leave Yelp.com.

Based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback of our OpenTable relationship, as well as growth and engagement via Yelp Mobile, we’ve decided to take it one step farther. Enter: Yelp and OpenTable on your Yelp iPhone, iPad and Android apps.

Never wait in line again!

Starting today, yelpers in the US can now not only search for and find their favorite joints, but also book reservations via OpenTable in their Yelp apps for iPhone, iPad and Android without ever leaving the app. No muss, no fuss -- and best of all, no waiting in line!

The Most Romantic City on Yelp is...

It’s almost that time of year: boxes of chocolates are multiplying in drug stores, dinner reservations are hastily being made and bouquets of roses ordered. My friends: love is in the air! Or, you’re drowning your sorrows over margaritas. Either/or.  

In honor of this Day of Love, we thought we’d take a peek behind the scenes here at Yelp and see what exactly you yelpers are searching for come Valentine’s Day! Based on our search data from 2010 we were able to uncover:

• When yelpers start doing their Valentine’s Day research
• What cities are most actively searched in the quest for love
• Which cities are most inclined to put a ring on it
• And last but not least, what are the most popular Yelp businesses in our biggest cities come February 14th

Let’s kick things off with the timing of the research. You’ll be glad to know the majority of yelpers don’t procrastinate (too much). Based on 2010 activity, we see “romantic-type” queries more than double site wide the week before February 14th -- with an extra oopmh on the 13th.

OK, so which cities are doing the most homework on how to spoil their loved ones? We can figure out which city is likely going to get their groove on come the night of February 14th by using the Wilson Score of the proportion of romantic search / total search for the week before Valentine’s Day.

Say what?

It all starts with identifying a set of romantic queries such as searches for “romantic restaurants”, “chocolate covered strawberries”, and even “lingerie”, which occur in a statistically significantly greater proportion the week before Valentine’s Day than at other times during the year. The next obvious step to take would be to count up the number of romantic searches by city and order by that count, right? Unfortunately, that just isn't fair. Cities that are massive Yelp communities, like New York, may have a much larger absolute number of romantic searches. We take this into account by dividing by total search activity in a city to calculate the proportion of romantic queries (if you want to get super technical, the lower bound of the Wilson binomial confidence interval, but basically a proportion). That gives us a much clearer and fairer picture of just which cities have set their hearts on matters of the, well, heart!

But we’re not here to talk about math - we’re here to talk about love! Without further ado, The 5 Most Romantic Cities on Yelp are...

1. Tacoma, Washington
2. Los Angeles, California
3. Santa Cruz, California
4. New Haven, Connecticut
5. El Paso, Texas          
   

Ladies (and gents!), take note, we didn’t stop there. Based on engagement-type queries, we also determined The 5 Cities Most Likely to Put a Ring on It on Valentine’s Day...

1. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
2. Burlingame, California
3. Palo Alto, California
4. Brooklyn, New York
5. Boston, Massachusetts

By using the same formula, we can also calculate which businesses in our top Yelp cities saw the most, er, love, the week before Valentine’s Day:

1. Atlanta: Pasta Da Pulcinella
2. Boston: Taranta Cucina Meridionale
3. Brooklyn: Zenkichi
4. Chicago: Geja’s Cafe
5. Dallas: Dakota's Restaurant
6. London: Bistrotheque
7. Los Angeles: The Little Door
8. Miami: Il Gabbiano
9. Montreal: Au Pied De Cochon Montreal
10. New York: One if By Land, Two if By Sea
11. Toronto: Scaramouche Restaurant Pasta Bar & Grill
12. San Francisco: Acquerello
13. Seattle: Chez Shea

Unfortunately, not everyone always feels the love (cue sad trombone) The Least Romantic City on Yelp is: Hamilton, Ontario. But whether you’re in Hamilton, Ontario; Tacoma, Washington or one of the 8 countries Yelp is in worldwide, it’s not too late to start your own Valentine’s Day search -- and we may just know a great site for that.

Take a Tour of our Humble Abode on TechCrunch TV!

Earlier this week, Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s CEO and co-founder, gave TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid a tour of our headquarter offices in San Francisco for a new MTV Cribs-esque series that TechCrunch is working on.

We give the video -- complete with shots of the KegMate, real-time Yelp Check-in data and of course, Darwin -- a solid 5 stars, but Jason’s beer pouring skills, on the other hand, could use a little improvement. Check it out for yourself, here:

Via Yelp Mobile, Yelpers Call a Local Business Every Other Second

Who you gonna call when you need a local business? We think we have some idea. In December 2010 alone, yelpers called a local businesses every other second -- and that was just via a Yelp mobile app!

Not only were people visiting Yelp Mobile, they were putting it to work; making some real decisions on where to eat, shop and play. Our data shows us that in the month of December 2010:

• 3.2 million unique visitors used a Yelp mobile app*
• 35% of all searches on Yelp.com came from a Yelp mobile app
• Every other second a consumer generated directions to a local business
• A photo was uploaded every 30 seconds from a Yelp mobile app

No kidding, right? In fact, on our most popular apps - iPhone, Android and most recently, iPad - continue to surge and our iPhone and iPad apps, respectively, were named the #15 and #5 apps of ALL TIME by Apple.

And that’s just mobile... In the past month, more than 45 million unique visitors have turned to Yelp to make a spending decision based on the more than 15 million reviews!

Bam!

If you’re a business owner, you should definitely take advantage of this targeted traffic by uploading a Sale and Special Offer or a Check-in Offer via our free suite of tools that can be found at biz.yelp.com. If you’re a consumer in need of a great pizza pie, eyebrow wax or dirty martini, look no further!

*What's this mean? We use traffic instead of downloads. See why here!

Lord Mayor of Dublin, Meet Yelp Mayor of Dublin

This week, our Dublin Community Manager, Annie L., or as we like to call her, “The Mayor of Yelp Dublin”, met The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Gerry Breen at one of his very first Dublin Villages Workshops.

 

Will the real Mayor please stand up?

As Dublin has always been a tech savvy city, the purpose of The Lord Mayor's workshop was to bring together the many small businesses throughout Dublin’s neighbourhoods and educate them on opportunities to encourage consumers to shop local and support their communities.

Lucky for them, connecting people with great local businesses is SO up our alley.

Annie presented to dozens of businesses on Yelp, our Dublin Community and our Small Business Owner Tools that allow businesses to interact with the 45 million unique visitors that came to Yelp in January -- all for free, of course! In fact, Annie and our Director of International Products, Bryan Byrne, talked to The Silicon Republic late last year about how businesses in Dublin are already leveraging Yelp. You can watch the video here. 

Additionally, Annie provided information about Yelp’s Passport Events: a major marketing promotion that highlights a specific neighbourhood and the businesses of all shapes, sizes and types that make it special. The response was, to say the least, ecstatic. Numerous neighbourhoods have already raised their hand to participate, including Ranelagh, Terenure and Clontarf.

Yelp’s mission has always been to connect people with the businesses around them; thanks to Dublin’s Lord Mayor for giving our own a helping hand!